Basic Introduction or Principle: We all are aware with the term "Generator". A device which converts mechanical energy into electrical energy is known as generator. This generator makes rotate with the help of some kind of external energy. When this energy extract from the energy of steam, the plant is known as steam power plant. A simple steam plant works on Rankine cycle. In the first step, water is feed into a boiler at a very high pressure by BFP (boiler feed pump). This high pressurized water is heated into a boiler which converts it into high pressurized super heated steam. This high energized steam passes through steam turbine (a mechanical device which converts flow energy of fluid into mechanical energy) and rotate it. Owing to extract full energy of steam, three stage turbines is used which is known as LPT (Low pressure turbine), IPT (intermediate pressure turbine) and HPT (High pressure turbine). The turbine shaft is connected to the...
A new type of turbine designed at Japan’s Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) could generate electricity while simultaneously protecting coastlines from erosion.
(Credit: OIST)
The Wave Energy Converter (WEC) project involves using multiple turbines near the shoreline, which harvest the energy of crashing waves. Like the concrete tetrapods and wave breakers used on coasts around the world, the turbines would help dissipate the incoming power of the ocean, helping to limit erosion.
“Surprisingly, 30 per cent of the seashore in mainland Japan is covered with tetrapods and wave breakers,” said OIST’s Professor Tsumoru Shintake, who is leading the project.
“Using just 1 per cent of the seashore of mainland Japan can [generate] about 10 gigawatts [of energy], which is equivalent to 10 nuclear power plants. That’s huge.”
According to the researchers, the devices will be able to withstand the harsh wave conditions as well as extreme weather such as typhoons. Inspired by dolphin fins, the five blades on the 70cm diameter turbines are flexible, as is the supporting structure, which will allow the entire mechanism to “bend like a flower”. The flexible blades will also be calibrated to rotate at speeds that are not dangerous to marine life. Behind the blades, a permanent magnet electric generator is housed in a watertight ceramic casing, while energy is returned ashore via a cable in the anchoring structure.
(Credit: OIST)
The OIST team believes the turbines could operate in locations where tetrapods have already been placed, acting as a primary barrier and meeting the waves at their most powerful. Existing maintenance routes for the tetrapods could also be used for the turbines, which the team predicts should have a lifespan of around 10 years. The next phase of the research will see two half-scale WEC turbines installed on a stretch of coastline, powering LED lights, but Shintake hopes the system will one day widespread adoption.
“I’m imagining the planet two hundred years later,” he said. “I hope these [turbines] will be working hard quietly, and nicely, on each beach on which they have been installed.”
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