Wave Energy Conversion in Malaysia: A Focus on Bent Duct Buoy Configurations

Abstract

Ocean wave energy, a renewable and abundant resource, presents significant potential for sustainable power generation. The South China Sea, adjacent to Malaysia, demonstrates considerable promise in this domain. This study investigates bent duct buoy Oscillating Water Column(OWC), predominantly examined by researchers in its Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB) configuration. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of fixed and floating for both backward and frontward configurations, and the output result will be shown in power output and efficiency; the result will be compared with all the configurations. This research provides valuable insights for selecting optimal configurations tailored to specific wave conditions in different geographical locations. Utilising a 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis methodology, four distinct configurations are fixed forward and backwards and floating forward and backwards to assess their performance with 0.75 m to 1.5 m wave heights. The study reveals that all the configurations show superior efficiency. In full-scale simulations, the fixed forward and backward configurations produced 10.8 kW of power with a significant wave height of approximately 0.75 m and an efficiency of 0.41. It shows the highest efficiency at low wave conditions. Similarly, a full-scale floating backwards bent duct buoy model, scaled up by a factor of eight, generated between 7.5 kW and 61.1 kW of power across wave heights ranging from 0.75 m to 1.5 m, achieving efficiencies of approximately 0.34 to 0.38. These configurations' results consistently indicate robust energy extraction across different wave conditions. The bent duct buoy OWC demonstrates significant potential as a wave energy converter under Malaysian wave conditions.