Scotland is famous for wave energy technology as already in the 1970s the Edinburgh Duck – also known as the Salter’s Duck was designed. Today we however got to learn about a bit newer technologies as we visited Mocean energy. Mocean energy designs attenuators that comprise of two floating arms and a hinge in between that has a generator for electricity production. The device is able to capture the most energy from waves whose wavelength is similar to the length of the device.
A unique thing about mocean energy is that they have a circular testing pool with a diameter of 25m. On the circumfrence of the pool, there are moving plates that can be controlled with a computer in order to create desired kind of waves. With the testing pool, Mocean energy can test how different loads affect their attenuator and develop its durability. The excursion hosts showed us astonishing waves, the coolest one was the standing wave, which looked unnatural.
The company has one real-life sized attenuator in the North-West Scottish sea. It is located 10 km away from the shore. The size of the device is rather large: its length is 20 m and weight 40 tons. The average power is 10 kW and the lifetime is 20+ years. The rough price range a few million pounds.
After the excursion we had free time and no activities together. We found a place to eat and then divided into smaller groups. Some of us went shopping to the St. James Mall. It was very big and fancy and had lots of stores that we don’t have in Finland. A couple of us hiked to Arthur’s Seat Mountain (after all hiking in Iceland?!). They described it as a beautiful view but to be honest no mountain can truly impress us after everything we saw in Iceland. The rest of the evening was peaceful and we just hung out at our apartments together. A good night’s sleep was necessary for all of us!
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