- A huge 330-ton sub sea power generation system floats in huge currents.
- The main aim of the generator is to make renewable energy out of huge currents.
- The 100-kilowatt-class “Kairyu” system completed a 3 1/2-year-long demonstration and ready for the commercial use
Over the past decade, IHI Corporation has been developing “Kairyu,” a 100-kilowatt-class generator that can harness the power of ocean currents, said in an article from a popularmechanics site.
How Kairyu works
The Kairyu system, proposed for deployment in the Kuroshio Current, one of the world’s strongest along Japan’s eastern coast, will be moored below sea level and anchored to the bottom of the sea.
The 65-foot-long and 65-foot-wide generator floats above the anchorage point, roughly 160 feet below the surface of the ocean.
The floating generator anchored to the bottom of the sea takes advantage of the balance between its buoyancy and the drag caused by the ocean current, thereby generating electric power
In the process, placing the subsea turbine in strong ocean currents allows the flow of the ocean to turn the turbines, generating power.
The ocean power generator has a mechanism that changes the pitch angle of the blades of the turbine rotors in accordance with the speed of the ocean current so that electric power can always be efficiently generated at any flow speed.
IHI partnered with New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in 2017 for a multi-year test of the prototype device. The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization believes the Kuroshio Current alone could generate 200 gigawatts of energy via submerged turbines.
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Source: popularmechanics
