CorPower Ocean has secured financial backing from Vinnova, Sweden’s national innovation agency, for a project exploring the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) for improved performance and control in wave energy technology.
The WACE project, short for Wave energy AI-based Control Enhancement, is now underway and is set to run until November 2025.
CorPower Ocean is being supported by project partner Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
A model-based design framework will be used in the WACE project. After establishing requirements for the closed-loop control system, an AI-based optimal control strategy is being designed along with a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test setup.
CorPower Ocean anticipates that its wave energy converters are operated in arrays or farms which will generate a vast amount of data. This project also aims for utilizing the available data to enhance an existing model-predictive control strategy combining optimal model-based control with AI.
This combination allows the exploration of more performant control schemes while keeping the devices in its feasible operating region. The performance of the developed algorithm will be proven using HIL testing providing a realistic real-time environment while using the existing operating strategy as a baseline.
“The optimal operation of wave energy converters is one of the key factors to lower the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) ultimately making it an attractive part of the future clean energy mix. The main goal of the WACE Project is to combine AI methods with optimal control to enhance our existing operating strategy and further improve the performance of our point absorber type wave energy converter,” said Gabriel Forstner, WACE Project Lead and CorPower Ocean Control Engineer.
A key feature of CorPower Ocean’s technology is its ability to tune and detune according to ocean conditions, limiting the response to storms and amplifying the motion and power capture in normal waves.
This feature has been demonstrated during the operational period of the company’s C4 device in Aguçadoura, off Portugal. The verification of the amplified motion and power capture by the phase control system is seen as a key outcome from the HiWave-5 demonstration project.
Wave farm projects are being developed by customers using CorPower Ocean’s technology along the Atlantic Arc, including sites in Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and Norway.
One project is being developed by Ireland’s state-owned energy supplier, ESB, off the coast of County Clare, following two decades of investigating a wide variety of technologies.
The pre-commercial phase of the EU-backed Saoirse Wave project, will involve CorPower Ocean wave energy converts as part of a CorPack cluster.
