Experiment on Hydraulic Power Take-Off Unit (PTO) for Point Absorber Wave Energy Converter (PA-WEC)

Ocean energy offers enormous potential compared to the other forms of renewable sources like wind and solar to move toward a sustainable energy source and decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. Wave energy converter is a device that converts ocean energy into electrical energy. Power take-off (PTO) systems convert the energy absorbed by the wave energy devices into electrical energy. Out of the various method of PTO, hydraulic PTO is the most widely used PTO system. The current research focuses on selecting hydraulic fluid for wave energy converter. Two hydraulic fluids, namely HLP-68 and HLP-46, are tested in the present hydraulic PTO setup. The variation in pressure, temperature, and Vrms generated by the generator is noted. Hydraulic fluid HLP-68 shows better performance as compared to HLP-46. Temperature increases more in HLP-68 as compared to HLP-46 of hydraulic fluid.