Dr. Garret Brady, a lecturer in Engineering at ITB, was recently awarded funding for the "SR2 Project" from Enterprise Ireland's Commercialisation Fund Scheme.
The SR2 project will design and build a novel electrical generator that could help wave energy devices generate electricity more effectively, and test it under simulated ocean conditions in the lab.
Speaking about the project, Dr. Brady says "Huge effort is being put into ocean wave power worldwide and hundreds of projects are currently underway to develop wave energy device technologies that will convert the power of ocean waves into electricity. We aim to develop a generator for use in these wave energy devices that is simpler and cheaper that what is currently on the market, and better able to withstand the hostile environmental conditions on the sea. We plan to build a prototype and test it in the lab here in ITB, using a 'programmable power train' to simulate the irregular, 'wild-speed' forces that a generator in a wave energy device on the ocean would experience."
Dr. Brady is pictured below with research assistant on the project, Francesco Paparella
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A positive result from this project could lead to follow-up partnership projects with Irish wave energy developers, to develop and install larger-scale, marinized versions of the generator on wave energy devices at sea. This would be a major step along the way to a proven, reliable generator technology for wave energy worldwide.
The total funding awarded to the SR2 project is 168,000 Euros. This project builds especially on the success of the LINGEN project (2010-2012), a two-year EI-sponsored project between ITB and Wavebob Ltd.
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