Renewable wave energy the focus of IBM project
IBM and The Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland have formed a partnership to understand and minimise the environmental impact of converting wave energy into electricity.
The project is said to be the first to utilise real time streaming analytics for monitoring underwater noise generated by wave energy conversion devices and could represent a significant step toward the ability to successfully and sustainability utilise the ocean as a new renewable energy source.
The system being deployed by the two organisations consists of sensing platforms, a communications infrastructure and advanced stream analytics that utilise cloud computing.
When fully operational, the system will produce one of the largest continuous collections of underwater acoustic data ever captured. This data will be made available to marine researchers and regulatory agencies, as well as industries such as renewable energy, shipping and offshore oil and gas.
The first test site, located in Galway Bay, has been part of the Smartbay collaboration involving IBM Research and the Marine Institute Ireland to monitor wave conditions, acoustics, marine life and pollution levels in and around the bay.
Development of a full scale, grid connected test site on the west coast of Ireland is also under way.
Ultimately, the team hopes to establish foundational platforms for comprehensive ocean energy monitoring with deep analytics that will tie in to smartgrid technologies.
