A Prototype Wave Power Converter

Commissioned by the Japanese Ministry of Transport, the Coastal Development Institute of Technology has developed an oscillating water column-type (OWC) wave power converter. The wave power extracting converter was designed especially for composite breakwaters. A breakwater with a wave power converter will efficiently reduce power generation costs, at the same time improving a breakwater's wave-resisting stability by absorbing wave energy. Basic research was conducted for a period of 5 years, starting in 1982. A field verification experiment for the breakwater has begun in 1987 and a test breakwater was constructed in the summer of 1989 at Sakata Port. The power generator went on-line and the experiment started in the winter of 1989.