Information from the oceans can help us understand climate change and natural disasters while also providing sources for food and energy. Persistent, reliable and cost effective instrumentation, communication, and power sources are necessary to support the maritime activities to obtain such information. Present solutions and technologies suffer from the need for costly and repetitive maintenance as well as the rather limited electric power output they provide.
The PowerBuoy® system integrates patented technologies in hydrodynamics, electronics, energy conversion, and computer control systems to extract the natural energy in ocean waves. The result is a leading edge, ocean-tested, proprietary autonomous system that turns wave power into reliable, clean, and environmentally beneficial electricity for offshore applications.
Wave power is abundant in all areas of the world and its harnessing offers a dependable clean source of renewable and cost effective energy. OPT’s PowerBuoy® converts such energy to provide persistent and reliable power generation for marine applications.
Current solutions for applications that require persistent, long-term operation and/or require significant power, such as batteries, solar, micro-wind and diesel, are limited and costly. The PowerBuoy® with its expandable, onboard battery system (Energy Storage System) can act as an offshore Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).
Effective Date: August 2018
HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT POLICY STATEMENT
Ocean Power Technologies is committed to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace and environment for our employees, customers, suppliers and our community.
Health, Safety & Environment is an OPT Core Value. At OPT, we aspire to transform the world through innovative ocean-energy solutions. To achieve this vision, focus on Health and Safety isn’t just important to us – it’s a fundamental building block of our company culture. Every business decision is premised on protecting our people, our partners, and our community.
We work together with our stakeholders to continuously improve our quality of execution and delivery. Every process and product design centers on ensuring the well-being of anyone that engages it, and the well-being of the environment within which it coexists. We believe that Quality and Safety are both complimentary and inherently prerequisites to one another, which sets the foundation for a Healthy and Safe workplace and environment.
All OPT employees are responsible for complying with HSE policies, procedures, laws, regulations and requirements. We hold each other accountable for our well-being through training, awareness, transparency, visibility, and most importantly regular communication. At OPT, everyone is empowered to take immediate action upon detecting an unsafe situation, including observe and report, question, and if need be stand-down an operation.
Every employee is engaged in Health, Safety and Environment. At OPT, we hold each other to the highest HSE standards, where every employee, customer, contractor and supplier has a voice directly to our business leadership. Our safety culture is built from the ground-up, from initial on-boarding of every new employee, and with a well-defined review and reporting rhythm including a rotating safety-committee, monthly management safety reviews, and monthly safety all-hands meetings. We are fully committed to fostering a healthy and safe workplace and environment.
Transforming the world through innovative ocean-energy solutions.
We will deliver durable, reliable, cost-effective ocean-energy solutions that enable new capabilities for our customers and partners, value to our shareholders, inspire our employees, and enhance the environment.
OPT’s PB3 can act as an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) which constantly recharges itself by harvesting energy from the waves. It is ocean-deployed, moored and floats over the point of use and can operate in any ocean depth over 20 meters and up to 3,000 meters (3 km).
The PB3 supplies power continuously to on-board payloads or equipment located on the seabed while also providing real time data transfer and communication to remote shore facilities. The PB3 is sized and designed to store sufficient electric energy to provide reliable “ride through” power in extended periods of flat-calm seas.
Ocean Power Technologies’ hybrid PowerBuoy® is an easily deployable, economical source of reliable offshore power and communications suitable for almost any ocean environment. Applications include surface surveillance, subsea monitoring, subsea power and charging, offshore connectivity and emergency service power for offshore industries including oil and gas, science and research, and communications.
The hybrid PowerBuoy® stores power for surface and subsea payloads in onboard lithium iron phosphate batteries, primarily charged via solar panel array. An efficient, clean burning and silent nominal 1kW Stirling engine provides backup power, fueled by liquid propane. This combination makes the hybrid PowerBuoy® a low- to zero-carbon power solution.
An optional communications mast added to the topside of the hybrid PowerBuoy® can accommodate OPT surveillance solution payload, which includes radar, cameras, and communications equipment, including Wi-Fi, 4G/5G, and satellite data communications hardware.
The hull design, compact size, and single-point mooring of the hybrid PowerBuoy® can facilitate cost-effective rapid deployment and installation around the world and across very broad sea states.
With energy generated independent of wave activity, the hybrid PowerBuoy® can deliver power in extreme weather and heavy seas, or low wave environments. In seasonal low sea states, the hybrid PowerBuoy® is an ideal complement to OPT’s PB3 PowerBuoy® wave energy converter.