Anaconda undergoes sea trials

ERJ staff report (DS)

Gosport, Hampshire -- The Anaconda wave energy device developed by UK company Checkmate is undergoing trials in a wave tank. 

The Anaconda device would be a hollow rubber tube, up to 200m long. Anchored to the seabed and floating just beneath the surface, each Anaconda is continually squeezed by passing ocean waves. These waves form bulges in the water-filled tube and travel down its length developing the power to drive a turbine in the tail. The electricity created would be captured and cabled ashore.

Anaconda is now in the final stage of exhaustive proof of concept testing at a 270 metre wave test tank run by QinetiQ in Gosport, Hampshire.  The QinetiQ ship tank is the UK's largest and was used to simulate the strength and frequency of ocean waves the device may encounter.

The original idea came from Professor Rod Rainey, a chief engineer with engineering design consultants Atkins. He said: “The beauty of wave energy is its consistency. However, the problem holding back wave energy machines is they tend to deteriorate over time in the harsh marine environment. Anaconda is non mechanical: it is mainly rubber, a natural material with a natural resilience and so it has very few moving parts to maintain.”  

A single Anaconda tube might generate up to 1 MW of power in the  right sea conditions. 

Checkmate said the first field of Anacondas could be in commercial production and start deployment off the UK coastline by 2014.