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Introduction

This wave energy converter was designed by the U.S. Department of Energy as part of their reference model project. The device concept was inspired by a device known as PowerBuoy (Ocean Power Technologies, 2017), which is a two-body floating point absorber design. The device consists of a surface float which moves in response to wave motion, relative to a vertical column spar buoy which is attached to a large reaction plate submerged at a considerable depth below the mean water line. Generation of electrical power occurs predominately by harnessing oscillations of the surface float in the heave direction (the device is designed to accommodate relative heave motions of up to 4 metres along the shaft). Stability of the device is ensured via a spread mooring configuration, and it is designed to operate in water depths of between 40 and 100 metres.