AXYS Technologies has recently completed manufacturing of a newly designed Instrumentation Buoy. The buoy was developed by AXYS in conjunction with the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC) for the testing of wave energy converters (WECs).
NNMREC is a U.S. Department of Energy sponsored partnership between Oregon State University (OSU), the University of Washington (UW), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The Instrumentation Buoy is a surface buoy based on the 6-metre NOMAD (Navy Oceanographic Meteorological Automatic Device) design. The buoy will facilitate open-ocean testing of WEC devices with average power outputs of up to 100 kW. It will provide power analysis and data acquisition, environmental monitoring, as well as an active converter interface to control power dissipation to an on-board electrical load. The WEC under test and the instrumentation buoy will be moored with approximately 125-150 meters separation, connected by a power and communication umbilical cable. A TRIAXYS with Currents Directional Wave Buoy will be deployed close by to provide wave and current profile data to the instrumentation buoy using either one of the GPRS or UHF dual telemetries.
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Offshore WIND staff, April 20, 2012; Image: axys