Design and layout of power conversion chain for a wave energy converter

Sammanfattning: Wave energy has the potential to provide an energy resource in this challenging energyenvironment. Wave energy converters are devices used to extract this energy and convertit into electricity. Wave Carpet is an example of such a novel wave energy converters andin its final form, it consists of a submerged membrane which covers an arbitrarily largearea above the sea floor. Incident waves create a pressure difference between the upper andlower surfaces, which triggers an up-and-down movement. The power take-off attached tothe surfaces serve to restrict this movement and thereby extract hydraulic power which isconverted to electricity.The Wave Carpet, is a type of wave energy converter that is beingdeveloped at University of California Berkeley′s Theoretical and Applied Fluid DynamicsLaboratory (TAFLab).The thesis aims at modeling and designing the different power conversion chainof the entire wave energy converter device. The process of energy conversion that yieldsthe required electrical energy for connecting a wave energy converter to an electricalnetwork is termed as the power conversion chain. A detailed electro-mechanical modelof the wave energy converter system connected to power grid is developed in theMatlab/SIMULINK environment and its corresponding generator and hydraulic controlstructure is implemented. The simulation response of the wave energy converter alongwith the power conversion chain is investigated.