Though it may not look like it, this test device is central to an innovative, snake-shaped, one-megawatt (MW) wave-power concept being developed by Checkmate Seaenergy that could lead the way towards a revolution in renewable marine energy.
The Anaconda — as the device co-invented by professors Rod Rainey and Francis Farley is called — is based on a deceptively simple design: a giant, vulcanised, tyre-cord fabric and natural-rubber tube filled with water that is moored by its nose to the seabed and outfitted with a conventional hydraulic turbine at its tail.
Installed
