A study on wave energy conversion using direct linear generator

Ocean wave has made a significant contribution in renewable energy resource. Since, lots of researches relating to wave energy generation (WEG) have been carried out. Among them, an electrical power take-off system (PTO) which can be used to combine wave extracting device and an electrical generating system is especially paid attention to. In this paper, a floating-buoy wave energy converter (WEC) using a linear generator is proposed and studied. The mathematical model is then derived in order to investigate the WEC operation. In addition, the principle to improve the WEC performance based on a so-called adaptive ballast control technique is also presented. Numerical simulations using MATLAB/Simulink have been performed in the time domains to evaluate the energy generation efficiency of this device. The WEG of using the suggested WEC is finally compared with that of using a conventional WEC based linear generator.