RT22 | Real-Time Modeling of WEC Array Control System on OPAL-RT Platform

With increased concern over human impacts on climate change, alternative, carbon-neutral technologies are being explored. One such method is wave energy conversion (WEC) using a power take-off (PTO) system. The PTO is an electrical generator that uses wave motion at its prime mover. WEC is a carbon-neutral way to generate energy. However, the energy extraction process is not trivial since ocean waves are typically irregular and contain many varying frequencies. To optimally extract energy from these waves, a proportional-derivative complex-conjugate control (PDC3) method is proposed. The proposed PDC3 method for WEC control uses online optimal signal estimation to identify wave frequency information and automatically tune the PTO to extract the maximum power on each frequency channel. A real-time model of a small network including multiple WEC-PTO Arrays is modeled, and the controller is tuned around the state and response of the real-time model running in OPAL-RT.