A team of engineers from the University of Edinburgh and the Universities of Trento, Bologna and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa in Italy is developing a wave energy device that could help generate low-cost electricity for thousands of Scottish homes.
The device, known as a Dielectric Elastomer Generator, could be used in fleets of low-cost, easily maintained structures at sea within decades, and take advantage of powerful waves in Scottish waters.
A scaled-down version of the system was tested in the FloWave facility at the University of Edinburgh – a 25m diameter circular tank that can reproduce any combination of ocean waves and currents.
Professor David Ingram from the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh said: “Wave energy is a potentially valuable resource around Scotland’s coastline, and developing systems that harness this could play a valuable role in producing clean energy for future generations.”
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