Offshore wave and wind together - evolution

Offshore wind and wave power can be remarkably complimentary. Given an extended, stable floating platform to share, important economies of renewable power production and energy storage are possible. The Pneumatically Stabilized Platform (PSP) embodies such a platform. Developed with USDARPA support and proved in model scale, the PSP will achieve its at-sea motion stability and structural loads mitigation by decoupling the “hull” from ocean wave pressures through the partial use of air buoyancy. In addition to supporting an array of WTs, the PSP deploys along its seaward edge the “Rho-Cee” WEC, termed the “Impedance-Matched Terminator”; comprising a nested set of tuned OWC absorbers, resonant across a selected frequency band. By means of impedance matching, highly efficient wave energy absorption is demonstrably achieved. As the characteristic impedance of ocean waves is small (denoted ρC, the product of water mass density and wave celerity - hence the name), the system´s input impedance, equally small, must be that presented by a resonant response.