Muscling the waves

Bobbing in the waters off St. Petersburg, Florida as of today, a buoy with "artificial muscle" technology is waiting.

What will it do with its newfound muscles?

That's what high profile Palo Alto, California research organization SRI International aims to find out.

The wave-powered generator works off a novel electroactive polymer artificial muscle, or EPAM, originally developed at SRI.

"It's a rubbery material. In this case we take a sheet of the rubbery material, and the way it stretches and contracts, that directly generates electricity," SRI senior research engineer Roy Kornbluh told the Cleantech Group.

A picture of the floating buoy >>

The artificial muscle-bound wave power generator is currently capable of generating 20 joules of energy per stroke, which SRI said corresponds to an average output power of more than 5 watts under typical ocean wave conditions.

"If all goes according to plan, next year we should have an order of magnitude or more, maybe 100 watts," said Kornbluh, who said that it might be ready for market within 5 years.

The wave power test is part of a program sponsored by Tokyo's Hyper Drive, a two-year-old venture backed startup focused on the application of EPAM to wave power generation.

"The advantage of the EPAM is that it directly converts motion into electricity," said Kornbluh. "We don't need pistons, or generators," he added, making the system more cost-efficient and reliable.

The technology at the heart of the new generator is from Artificial Muscle, which was spun-off from SRI in 2003.

The company, which received $20 million in Series B round funding in June, designs and manufactures solid-state actuator components for use in speakers, generators, motors, pumps, valves and sensors.

Of course, SRI and its offspring aren't the only ones looking to harness tidal power.

The U.K.'s FreeFlow 69 recently announced successful tests on a vertical axis free flow device which it says could be used to create electricity offshore or in tidal rivers and inland waterways.

Verdant Power has a trial underway in the East River off Manhattan (see Verdant deploys tidal power array in New York) and is eyeing other projects.

Finavera Renewables (TSX Venture: FVR) started construction in June on the second generation of its AquaBuOY wave energy converter (see Latest Finavera family member: another buoy).

Ocean Power Technologies has a PowerBuoy system, based on modular, ocean-going buoys (see OPT devices certified as compliant with grid).

Other players in the field include Ocean Power Delivery and SyncWave (see New ocean power player SyncWave calls itself cheaper).

But SRI said its generator wouldn't need as many moving parts.

"It would be more like an underwater flag, waving underwater, oscillating back and forth," said Kornbluh. "Instead of making one huge turbine, you could make many smaller things spread out over a very large area."

SRI is aiming for 25 watts of average output on the buoy, but future plans include a device capable of generating power in the kilowatts range for large-scale clean energy production.

All the contenders could benefit from recent news that the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is looking at speeding up the licensing process for ocean and tidal power pilot projects (see Marine power companies applaud possible FERC changes).

Some other SRI spin-off success stories in cleantech include Lamina Ceramics, which makes super-bright LED light engines, and PolyFuel, a maker of engineered membranes for fuel cells (see PolyFuel gets balance of grant from DOE).

Kornbluh said the buoy is floating dockside right now, and should be towed to a site in Tampa Bay for two weeks of tests.

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