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While undertaking his PhD at The UWA Oceans Institute, Nitin Repalle studied wave phenomena in partially-filled LNG tanks – what’s called the ‘sloshing’ effect – with the aim of making LNG transport in ships a safer option.

Now he’s using those same skills to harness the ocean’s waves to create electrical energy for our homes and businesses, as well as desalinated water.

Nitin has submitted his thesis and was recently appointed a hydrodynamics engineer with Carnegie Wave Energy.

The company is developing its CETO technology – which involves submerged buoys anchored to the seabed – to harness the power of the ocean’s waves to produce electricity and desalinated water.

Nitin says wave energy is a largely untapped source of renewable energy with huge potential. “Ocean waves are a vast source of clean energy whose total power on the world’s coastlines has been estimated to be 10 TW, the same order of magnitude as the world’s current power demand,” he says.

“In fact, the CSIRO’s 2010 clean energy report identifies that by converting just 10% of Australia’s near-shore wave energy, half of Australia’s current electricity consumption could be met.“

There are still challenges to be overcome such as harnessing power from the irregular behaviour of waves and coping with extreme weather conditions, but Nitin says the company is well on its way to developing commercial-scale units providing zero-emission electricity.

“My work involves a lot of numerical computations to optimise the hydrodynamic behaviour of a CETO device to the metocean conditions and build virtual prototype models to enhance the power absorption capacity from the waves in an economically feasible way,” Nitin says.

Media references

Tony Malkovic (on behalf of UWA Oceans Institute)  (+61 4) 11 103 398

Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783