Groundbreaking Research in Water Power

Sandia National Laboratories is attempting to change the game with regards to research in water power — despite its desert locale. “Here at Sandia, we look for solutions to facilitate that interconnection between water power and the electrical grid.” Watch to learn more as Sandia’s researchers explain their mission.

Transcript

00:00:00 foreign [Music] the water power program at Sandia National Laboratories strives to provide a secure Energy Future by enabling the advancement and innovation of water powered Technologies these Technologies generate clean renewable energy by harnessing power from waves currents tides and ocean

00:00:37 thermal gradients to that end our water power Technologies Department leverages key research and Engineering capabilities to support this growing industry great great opportunity in water power is that it's still kind of a new field and we can learn a lot from different energy Fields like mistakes they made and we can avoid those mistakes when

00:01:03 using the Earth's resources and ideally we won't end up with any unanticipated effects while we're making use of the water power so Marine renewable energy is a way of using the power that's available in our marine spaces so that's our oceans our rivers and converting it into usable power or produced water and so for example ocean wave energy converts the

00:01:36 motion of ocean waves into usable power often through devices called wave energy converter we're working on harvesting electricity from Mostly water sources including waves and current so we're trying to design and optimize this so the device that we can put out there in the ocean to harvest the energy to develop this computational model so that we can

00:02:08 predict the performances of those device water power is capturing the motion of the ocean now the interesting part of that is what are the effects of wave power into the electric grid so how does that motion interact with the Electric System once you interconnect with it water is an abundant resource and there are some remote communities that would

00:02:33 benefit from waypa water power can contribute to the energy mix and combinations of solar wind and water can be great solutions to remote communities one of the greatest challenges with water power is the interconnection with the electric grid now the electric grid is very complex and here in Sandia we look for solutions to facilitate that interconnection between water power and

00:02:57 the electric grid the water power program combines staff expertise with exceptional testing facilities a strong engineering foundation and the ability to collaborate across a wide range of research areas we continue to grow our Partnerships with key stakeholders to overcome technical barriers promote an environment and climate preserving

00:03:20 energy source and Advance the future of water power from cataloging and disseminating met ocean statistics at wave title and River sites through resource characterization to measuring device performance and environmental effects our broad range of cross-cutting capabilities support our objectives we perform simulation and Analysis in

00:03:46 response to the Marine energy community's needs through device performance array effects power takeoff controls resource assessments environmental effects and levelized cost of electricity analyzes we also have an integral role in wave energy converter design our experimental testing measurements and instrumentation features over a

00:04:11 decade of experience in hydrodynamic and load measurements including mhk sites Laboratory Testing facilities and both wave and current energy converter testing we draw upon a broad range of Dynamics and controls capabilities incorporating experts from robotics defense Energy Systems and Aerospace to support research on wave energy tidal energy and

00:04:36 offshore wind our expertise in wave energy conversion Dynamics allows us to advise industry on how to best apply these techniques to their novel devices in simulation or through careful design of experiments and selection of sensors during physical test campaigns the Marine renewable energies Advanced Materials programs provide developers

00:05:00 with solutions to overcome their materials and Coatings needs that hinder devices construction performance maintenance or reliability the Advanced Materials laboratory AML provides materials expertise and Innovation to enable sandia's success in National Security missions we continue to spearhead Science and Engineering in the Marine energy field

00:05:23 creating National and Global impact from open source code for marine energy applications to environmental analysis and hydropower sandia's water power program leverages its broad Suite of capabilities to contribute to National Security and a resilient Energy Future foreign