WETGEN (Wave Energy Turbine Generator) is home for the HANNA Wave Energy Turbine.  The device harvests energy from ocean waves by means of the OWC (Oscillating Water Column) principle.  All OWC systems generally work this way: when a hollow tube has one end placed below the ocean's surface, the water trapped inside the semi-submerged tube will rise and fall with each passing wave.   This movement acts like a piston in a cylinder; it creates an alternating air flow that switches between compression and suction cycles.  When an air turbine is mounted on the other end of the tube, the air  being pushed out and drawn back in, can be used to spin the turbine.  Connecting a generator to the turbine's drive shaft will produce clean, renewable electricity.

 

  This back and forth cycle presents a difficult challenge for all OWC systems to overcome: How can a reversing air flow that changes direction with every passing wave, be used to spin a turbine/generator in only one continuous direction?  The Hanna Turbine offers an innovative and powerful solution to this challenge. 

 

  The Hanna Turbine is an alternative to more complex and less efficient Power Take-Off mechanisms that have been around for the past thirty years.  It drives two conventional generators - doubling the electrical output of any other commercially available turbine.  It is also the most versatile system in the global marketplace, offering three distinct power take-off designs to meet job-specific applications.  It can be scaled up to three meters (9 feet) in diameter.  The Hanna Turbine can provide clean, renewable and affordable energy for the world's coastal and island communities where 80% of the people on Earth reside.

 

     A miniaturized Hanna Fractional Turbine (HFT) model would power small, unmoored station-keeping buoys known as gateway buoys.  The gateway platform has both commercial, and scientific applications.  This versatile marine asset will deliver extended mission, low wattage power for communications and satellite telemetry, acoustic modems, and tsunami sensors.  The HFT would operate at low noise levels, using a proprietary, closed-loop, oscillating air column system.  The entire turbine and generator would be hermetically sealed within a semi-submersible, hydrodynamic float.  Because the design has no inlet or exhaust ports, the turbine, generator and power-conditioning components will never come in contact with the sea.

 

  Larger versions of the Hanna Turbine can be built into new or existing breakwaters or jetties and can be connected directly to the grid. Other applications can be installed on tethered buoys, the legs of off shore oil rigs or on floating wind and wave harvesting platforms.  The video below shows the turbine mockup in development.  The model shown is four feet in diameter. A Hanna Turbine of this dimension would be useful to power a typical navigational buoy or full scale data acquisition buoy.

 

  For a more detailed description, please click at the bottom of the page.