Oscilla Power One Step Closer to Launching Triton

Oscilla Power, a Seattle-based company that develops novel energy wave systems, has completed preliminary steps required to launch its full-scale Triton-C Wave energy converter.

Oscilla Power’s Triton wave energy converter (WEC) will make ocean wave energy a cost-effective resource that can compete with other renewable energy sources, including wind and solar. Before launching the WEC, Oscilla Power had to relocate the Triton-C and perform setup and staging activities at the launch site at the Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) in Hawaii.

To get to this stage, Oscilla Power towed the Triton-C from Honolulu Harbor for 12 hours to the grid connection point at the WETS site in Kanehoe Bay. The Triton-C will be tethered there for a commercial demonstration.

At the location, the company’s team rehearsed and worked through some of the activities needed for ultimate deployment, including testing the ability to manually activate various systems under some of the significant motions experienced by the system. The team is making adjustments based on this practice before the full power performance tests in the coming weeks.

“It was an incredibly rewarding experience to get the Triton-C out to its final deployment location and see just how it operates, if only for a few hours,” Tim Mundon, chief technology officer of Oscilla Power, said in a statement. “We now know what to expect from both setup and operations as we plan for the next phase of the launch –– a more expansive testing of the energy capture and power generation components of the Triton. I am proud of the entire team and our partners who have gotten us to this critical juncture.”

The WEC is now staged two miles from the WETS launch site, and Oscilla Power said it will take advantage of suitable weather and wave conditions for both further testing and the ultimate installation.

The company also said the design of the WEC has overcome some of the typical challenges that have prevented wave energy from being adopted previously. The Triton has increased levels of energy capture, conversion efficiency, and survivability in the harsh ocean environment.

Wave power technology has been an innovative energy solution that hasn’t seen much scale over the years compared to solar and wind. However, newer designs may soon make more headway.