The aim of this licentiate thesis is to investigate opportunities to produce fresh-water and electricity using marine renewable energy sources, such as wave power and marine current power, for water scarce areas. It summarizes the ongoing work within the field and suggests some possibilities of future re-search. Specifically, the desalination process reverse osmosis has been dis-cussed in combination with the wave energy concept designed at Uppsala Uni-versity for a site by the Kenyan coast. A review on wave powered desalination systems was presented, and the wave climate of the Kenyan coast was reana-lyzed and discussed with respect to the wave power and desalination applica-tion. Also, the magnetic circuit of the linear generator was investigated, as well as the control of the system, to enhance its sustainability. Moreover, the marine current energy converter designed at Uppsala University was investi-gated for desalination purposes. Only literature studies and simulations were performed, and the research would benefit from experimental work.

The depletion warning of non-renewable resources, such as gas, coal and oil, and the imminent effects of climate change turned the attention to clean and fossil fuel-free generated electricity. University research groups worldwide are studying solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and ocean energy harvesting. The focus of this thesis is the wave and marine current energy researched at the division of Electricity at Uppsala University (UU). 

The main drawbacks that hinder the commercialization of marine energy converter devices is a high installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning cost. Furthermore, these processes are highly weather dependent and thus, can be time consuming beyond planning. In this thesis, an evaluation of the cost, time and safety efficiency of the devices’ offshore deployment (both wave and marine current), and a comparative evaluation regarding the safety in the use of divers and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are conducted. Moreover, a risk analysis study for a common deployment barge while installing an UU wave energy converter (WEC) is presented with the aim to investigate the failure of the crane hoisting system.

The UU wave energy project have been initiated in 2001, and since then 14 WECs of various designs have been developed and deployed offshore, at the Lysekil research site (LRS), on the Swedish west coast and in Åland, Finland. The UU device is a point absorber with a linear generator power take off. It is secured on the seabed by a concrete gravity foundation. The absorbed wave energy is transmitted to shore through the marine substation (MS) where all the generators are interconnected. In 2008 an UU spin-off company, Seabased AB (SAB), was established and so far has developed and installed several WECs and two MSs, after the UU devices main principle. SAB deployments were conducted in Sotenäs, Sweden, at the Maren test site (MTS) in Norway; and in Ada Foah, Ghana. The active participation and the thorough study of the above deployments led to a cost, time and safety evaluation of the methods followed. Four main methods were identified and the most suitable one can be chosen depending on the deployment type, for example, for single or mass device deployment.

The first UU full scale marine current energy converter (MCEC) was constructed in 2007 at the Ångström Laboratory and deployed at Söderfors, in the river Dalälven in March 2013. The UU turbine is of a vertical axis type and is connected to a directly driven permanent magnet synchronous generator of a low-speed. With this deployment as an example, four MCEC installation methods were proposed and evaluated in terms of cost and time efficiency.

A comparative study on the use of divers and ROVs for the deployment and maintenance of WECs at the LRS has been carried out, showing the potential time and costs saved when using ROVs instead of divers in underwater operations. The main restrictions when using divers and ROVs were presented. Most importantly, the modelling introduced is generalized for most types of wave energy technologies, since it does not depend on the structure size or type.

Finally, a table of safe launch operation of a WEC is presented. In this table the safe, restrictive and prohibitive sea states are found for a single WEC deployment, using a barge and a crane placed on it. The table can be utilized as a guidance for offshore operations safety and can be extended for a variety of device types and vessels.

Increasing energy consumption and concern for carbon emissions has boosted the demand for renewable energy production. The focus on renewable energy has gained much attention in wind, solar, hydro and wave power generations. Wave power has great potential due to its high energy density but there are challenges as well. This thesis addresses some of the challenges involved in the grid integration of wave energy and in maintaining power quality. In this thesis a grid connection of permanent magnet linear generator (PMLG) based wave energy converter (WEC) as a renewable energy source is evaluated at the Division of Electricity, Uppsala University.

The grid impact of a wave energy park in terms of flicker, voltage variations and harmonic distortion at the grid-connection point are investigated extensively. The short-term flicker level generated by the WEC and a wave energy park (WEP) related to the rated WEP power and grid impedance angle at the PCC are evaluated.

In this thesis, an improved control for hybrid energy storage is presented, which enhanced the efficiency and increased the battery life while smoothing the intermittent power from the WEP. The thesis, also, contributes to resolve the problem of inertia and power balance by integrating the DC-link capacitor in the control loop which reduce the size and cost of the components at the DC-link.

The work presented in the thesis has contributed for the force control of the PMLG which is predicted and controlled by regulating the stator currents of the generator. A nonlinear, neural, control is evaluated and compared to a linear, proportional-integral, control. The results from the nonlinear control show the good agreement between the referenced and the generated currents. The reduced losses enhanced the accuracy of the system.

A control and grid connection system for a WEC has been designed and installed. The thesis addresses the issue of power quality in low, steady and varying power flows of compliance with the grid code requirements.

This doctoral thesis presents work related to wave powered desalination. Wave power for desalination could be an interesting alternative for islands or coastal regions facing freshwater shortage, and several systems have been proposed in literature. However, desalination is a process which demands a lot of energy. Studies presented in the thesis indicate that the wave energy converter designed at Uppsala University in Sweden could be used for desalination. This wave energy converter includes a floating buoy connected via a wire to a linear generator. The linear generator has magnets mounted on its movable part (the translator). Small-scale experiments have been included, indicating that intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wave power, could be used for reverse osmosis desalination. Moreover, hybrid systems, including several different renewable energy sources, could be investigated for desalination. There may be interesting minerals in the desalination brine. The thesis also includes investigations on the magnetic material inside the linear generator, as well as on control strategies for wave energy converters. An opportunity of including different types of ferrites in the linear generator has been analyzed. The thesis also presents pedagogic development projects for the electro engineering education at Uppsala University, suggesting that including a greater variability and more student-centered learning approaches could be beneficial.

The increasing interest in renewable energy has significantly increased in the last decades. The increasing amount of variable renewable energy resources in the grid, which are connected via power electronics, reduces the total mechanical system inertia. Frequency-regulating resources such as hydropower will become more important in balancing variable renewable energy resources, setting higher requirements on stability and performance to maintain a stable electrical grid. This thesis concerns the decreased mechanical inertia from non-directly electrically coupled generation units. The thesis starts with a description of the grid system inertia situation today and presents two methods for estimating the grid frequency derivative used to provide synthetic inertia and one method used to enhance the mechanical inertia response of a synchronous generator. The synthetic inertia and enhanced inertia methods are tested in a small-scale experimental setup and compared with results from tests in the Nordic grid. A full-scale hybrid energy storage system was designed and built using a split frequency method as a power controller. The results show that a power-frequency derivative controller-based synthetic inertia method achieved an improved grid frequency quality during regular operation in the nano-grid experimental setup. The results are evaluated both via simulations and experimental tests. The results from the hybrid energy storage solution showed the possibility of increasing frequency quality by using a slow run of the river hydroelectric power plants and a battery energy storage system for frequency containment reserve.