Project Profile

The project is promoting the final phases of research and development of the first pilot system in the world of an "overflow" device for the conversion of totally integrated wave motor technology in maritime dams.

The research activities undertaken thanks to the Social Innovation Project represent the global state of the art in the sector and already enjoy ample documented interest in the international scientific community. Thanks to the tested technical innovations, it is possible to count notable steps forward on some questions which remain unresolved and have already been highlighted in the scientific and technical literature. Among these number:

1. Performance of non-overflow capacity of the coping wall and protection of the port basin at the back of the work;
2. Reduction of hydrodynamic underthrust;
3. Optimisation of frontal ramp efficiency;
4. Reduction of costs of construction of coping walls.

Some information is scientifically valid and "exportable" also for configurations of innovative maritime dams not destined for the production of electrical energy by wave motor.

As regards the study of electromechanical power apparatuses, from the study undertaken up to now, one of its kind, it has been highlighted that in the face of all the available technical literature it is possible to extract energy effectively and efficiently even with types of turbines not conventionally employed for the values of hydraulic jump and flow rate typical of the installations of DIMEMO on a real scale (so-called "Low-head turbines"). Such results are totally innovative and will be consolidated through further technical-scientific collaborations currently being defined.

In the field of software planning and numerical modelling, the physical-mathematical advances and related algorithms of the field have been prepared, some of which supervised by research experts for the sector concerned, subdivided into the following modules:

1. Wave transformation module (random wave generation from spectral characteristics with zero-up crossing analysis and sampling of wave-by-wave periods);
2. Module of generation of temporal series of flow rates (calibrated on the physical laboratory model in WP1) of wave-by-wave type;
3. Module related to transformation of flow rates in volumes in the DIMEMO basin, with identification of the hydraulic condition of origin for each spatial-temporal interval, including sub-module of propagation of the wave projection along the transversal section;
4. Module of propagation of flow rates within the DIMEMO basin-canal;
5. Module of hydraulic efflux from the turbines.

In the field of analysis of wave energy potential, the analyses so far carried out have concerned the Mediterranean climate in its entirety and in detail some locations or so-called "type sites" useful for the experimental surveys in WP1 and/or for preliminary analyses relating to some promising areas for the pilot system.

Analyses of the energy potential of the wave motor have been completed in the entire Campania region. Furthermore some energy hot spots have been identified in the Mediterranean.

An integrated study on the theme of Ecodesign is being promoted, with the objective of making the DIMEMO project a case study in the introduction of environmental topics of production in the project activity.

In this way, DIMEMO will represent "best practice" in the field of planning, construction and management of systems of renewable energy conversion, making itself an example on the international stage.

By April 2015 the pilot system will be developed on a large scale in a location of great media impact.

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