Within the hydrokinetic energy sector of the renewable and/or clean energy industry, we have seen that research and development has generally focused on developing energy generation technologies for environments that can only work in very high water velocity environments, such as 3, 4, 5 meters per second (6, 8, 10 knots). While these areas of extreme water velocity are very high in kinetic energy, they only exist in a very small percentage of the world’s waters. Our goal is to provide electric power to locations worldwide utilizing the kinetic energy in “typical” water conditions. Our design specifications call for 1 meter per second (2 knots) of water flow to produce 1MWh of power. This design specification, once successfully tested, can then be simply adapted into higher velocity waters if a specific site location calls for it. As most locations in the world have lower velocity waters, a turbine designed to work in 3, 4, or 5 meters per second (6, 8, 10 knots) water flows will not work in waters that have velocities of 1-2 meters per second (2-4 knots).
Because the velocity of water is the major factor in the amount of hydrokinetic energy that can be extracted, and because our design specifications call for our power generation system to work in lower velocity water, we are developing and will be testing a system that will amplify the velocity of the water that goes through our power generation system.
