Control-Informed Geometric Optimization of Wave Energy Converters: The Impact of Device Motion and Force Constraints

Paula B. Garcia-Rosa, Giorgio Bacelli and John V. Ringwood
Additional contact information
Paula B. Garcia-Rosa: Centre for Ocean Energy Research, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
Giorgio Bacelli: Centre for Ocean Energy Research, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
John V. Ringwood: Centre for Ocean Energy Research, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland

Energies, 2015, vol. 8, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: The energy cost for producing electricity via wave energy converters (WECs) is still not competitive with other renewable energy sources, especially wind energy. It is well known that energy maximising control plays an important role to improve the performance of WECs, allowing the energy conversion to be performed as economically as possible. The control strategies are usually subsequently employed on a device that was designed and optimized in the absence of control for the prevailing sea conditions in a particular location. If an optimal unconstrained control strategy, such as pseudo-spectral optimal control (PSOC), is adopted, an overall optimized system can be obtained no matter whether the control design is incorporated at the geometry optimization stage or not. Nonetheless, strategies, such as latching control (LC), must be incorporated at the optimization design stage of the WEC geometry if an overall optimized system is to be realised. In this paper, the impact of device motion and force constraints in the design of control-informed optimized WEC geometries is addressed. The aim is to verify to what extent the constraints modify the connection between the control and the optimal device design. Intuitively, one might expect that if the constraints are very tight, the optimal device shape is the same regardless of incorporating or not the constrained control at the geometry optimization stage. However, this paper tests the hypothesis that the imposition of constraints will limit the control influence on the optimal device shape. PSOC, LC and passive control (PC) are considered in this study. In addition, constrained versions of LC and PC are presented.

Keywords: wave energy; power optimization; optimal geometry; control; constraints (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/12/12386/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/12/12386/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:8:y:2015:i:12:p:12386-13687:d:59803

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().