The European programme to develop the Wells air turbine for applications in wave energy

Abstract

The European Wave Energy Pilot Plants currently under construction are utilising Wells air turbines to convert oscillating pneumatic energy within the converters to unidirectional energy of rotation for direct coupling to electrical generators. The Wells turbine has also been proposed for future off shore wave energy converters (eg SEA CLAM). The European research programme was to produce Recommendations for selecting the most appropriate air turbine for a given wave power application. The work concentrated on collating existing work on the Wells turbine, and extending it to examine rotor aerodynamics, the effect and practicality of variable pitch rotor blades, the effect on performance of interaction with the converter, and the preparation of design guide lines. A comparison between the output of a Wells turbine and a conventional air turbine with rectifying valves when subjected to the same random reversing air flow was also conducted. This paper gives a brief outline of the programme of work, and concludes that at this stage of development the Wells turbine is the preferred choice of prime mover for pneumatic wave energy converters.