A Vertical Flux-Switching Permanent Magnet Based Oscillating Wave Power Generator with Energy Storage

• Main Authors: Yu Zou, Ka Wai Eric Cheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-06-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: wave power; energy storage; super capacitor; vertical flux-switching machine; SMC
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/7/887

In this paper, an effective low-speed oscillating wave power generator and its energy storage system have been proposed. A vertical flux-switching permanent magnet (PM) machine is designed as the generator while supercapacitors and batteries are used to store the energy. First, the overall power generation system is established and principles of the machine are introduced. Second, three modes are proposed for the energy storage system and sliding mode control (SMC) is employed to regulate the voltage of the direct current (DC) bus, observe the mechanical input, and feedback the status of the storage system. Finally, experiments with load and sinusoidal mechanical inputs are carried out to validate the effectiveness and stability of power generation for wave energy. The results show that the proposed power generation system can be employed in low-speed environment around 1 m/s to absorb random wave power, achieving over 60% power efficiency. The power generation approach can be used to capture wave energy in the future.