A symbiotic approach to the design of offshore wind turbines with other energy harvesting systems
Author(s)
Haji, Maha N.; Kluger, Jocelyn Maxine; Sapsis, Themistoklis P.; Slocum, Alexander H![Thumbnail](/bitstream/handle/1721.1/121509/Ocean%20Engineering.pdf.jpg?sequence=3&isAllowed=y)
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The capital cost of a 5 MW floating wind turbine (FWT) runs as high as $20.7 million, leading to an energy cost of $0.20/kWh, four times that of natural gas (Myhr et al., 2014). Although a single type of energy harvesting device may be too expensive to deploy, if it can operate symbiotically with others, the combined cost of energy might be acceptable. In this study, we show that attaching a wave energy converter (WEC) to the FWT may simultaneously produce an average of 240 kW wave power, reduce the WEC levelized cost of energy by 14% by eliminating redundant components, and reduce the FWT tower lifetime equivalent fatigue stress by 23% by reducing platform motion. Furthermore, the offshore wind turbine may also serve as a structure for the harvesting of valuable elements from seawater, such as uranium, lithium, and cobalt. The major cost drivers for the harvesting of uranium from seawater have been identified to be those associated with the mooring and deployment of the metal adsorbing polymers (Schneider and Sachde, 2013; Byers and Schneider, 2016). In the case of uranium, a symbiotic system coupled with an offshore wind turbine was found to reduce the seawater uranium production cost by at least 11% and up to 30% (Byers et al., 2016, 2018; Haji, 2017). Keywords: Wave energy; Offshore wind turbine; Uranium; Nuclear power; Symbiotic system
Date issued
2018-12Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical EngineeringJournal
Ocean Engineering
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Haji, Maha N. et al. "A symbiotic approach to the design of offshore wind turbines with other energy harvesting systems." Ocean Engineering 169 (December 2018): 673-681 © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
0029-8018