Hybrid wave and wind energy converter, Coast Engineering Research Group

Director of studies: Professor Gregorio Iglesias

Funded by the School of Marine Science and Engineering

Researcher: Carlos Pérez Collazo

My research is about to analyse the possibilities of combining wave and offshore wind energy converters. Bring together these two marine renewable energies, means the study of different options, as:

  • Co-located farms, where the WECs and the offshore windmills are placed on the same maritime space, but without sharing the same substructure;
  • Hybrid technologies, which integrates a WEC and an offshore wind substructure as a common structure of multiplatform; and
  • Energy islands, which are large offshore floating platforms where different marine
In the proposed PhD thesis, after reviewing the state of the art of wave and current conversion technologies, their integration possibilities in offshore wind farms will be analyzed. Finally will be done a design of an hybrid energy converter OWC ‑ offshore wind turbine.

The main goals of the project are to carry out a revision of the state of the art of the sea energy exploitation systems and to analyse the possibilities of integration of these systems in offshore wind generators, with special reference to the Galician sea climate. Particular attention will be paid to the anchorage systems of the wind generators and the relation between these and the sea energy converters.

After caring this analysis, it will be done a design of an hybrid energy converter OWC ‑ offshore wind turbine in order to accomplish this design different designs would be consider and could be studied using, or physical modelling on a wave flume, or numerical modelling on a CFD program. 

Finally it could be obtained different solutions that would allow to describe at a theoretical way this hybrid device.

Hybrid wave and wind energy converter, Coast Engineering Research Group