A new offshore device, namely the Float Wave Electric Power Station has been designed for wave energy conversion into electricity.

The Marineco project focused on the economic and societal development of remote arctic regions without putting the wilderness area at risk. The primary objective was to exploit regional energy resources for developing environmentally friendly power-industrial technologies. In the Arctic as well as in other remote regions sea waves constitute the most available and promising energy carrier among other renewable sources.

The key concept was to study, build and demonstrate a viable, sea-wave energy based, environmentally-safe, power-industrial system. Consequently project partners developed a pilot module of the ecologically compatible, offshore Float Wave Electric Power Station (FWEPS) as a device for sea wave energy conversion. The FWEPS can be readily deployed in seas and oceans even under the most unpredictable conditions during seasonal or regional wave activity.

The developed module is a sealed capsule-float that includes a mechanical oscillatory drive, an electric generator and an auxiliary energy storage unit. The oscillatory drive is required to match the time variable properties of the wave space in order to exploit sea waves more effectively. Moreover, the axially symmetric streamlined shape of the device allows better navigation with a vertical deposition of the float on the sea surface.

The innovative design facilitates sustainable operation at variable lengths, velocities and intensities of waves as well as directions of their propagation. Apart from its capability to adapt to the continuously changing external conditions, the FWEPS is also extremely reliable. Its proper sealing offers full protection against corrosive attack of seawater and its vapour and thus, a long life-cycle for the device.