Hydroelectric Power Generator Inspired by Swimming Fish

Innovation: Industry

Vortex Hydro Energy

2016

Image: Daniil Silantev / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Transform Mechanical Energy

Mechanical energy is made up of kinetic energy (the energy of an object in motion) and potential energy (stored energy). Organisms use mechanical energy in a variety of ways, including capturing prey, transporting seeds, and moving around.

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Distribute Energy

Many forms of energy are naturally available, including kinetic, potential, thermal, elastic, radiant, chemical, and more. All living systems require energy to carry out their many activities. Energy isn’t a physical object that can be held, so it also can’t be pushed, pulled, or carried. However, it can be transmitted or transformed. For example, the golden-scale snail has a tri-layered shell that dissipates, or transfers, forces from a predator biting down on it, thereby minimizing damage to its soft body inside the shell.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Energy

Energy is naturally available in many forms, including kinetic, potential, thermal, elastic, radiant, chemical, and more. All living systems require energy to carry out their many activities, and have developed strategies appropriate to one or more of those forms. For example, some plants maximize their surface area available for capturing radiant energy from the sun while others have strategies to focus scattered light onto photosynthesizing areas.

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Move in/on Liquids

Water is not only the most abundant liquid on earth, but it’s vital to life–so it’s no surprise that the majority of life has evolved to thrive on and under its surface. Moving efficiently in and on this dense and dynamic substance presents unique challenges and opportunities for living systems. As a result, they have evolved countless solutions to optimize drag, utilize surface tension, fine tune buoyancy, and take advantage of various types of currents and fluid dynamics. For example, sharks can slide through water by reducing drag due to their streamlined shape and specially shaped features on their skin.

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Patents

VIVACE from Vortex Hydro Energy creates electricity from the transverse motion of cylinders caused by water currents.

Benefits

Efficient
Low cost
Versatile
Sustainable

Applications

Renewable energy production

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 7: Affordable & Clean Energy

The Challenge

Hydroelectric power is a one of the original forms of renewable energy, paving the wave for an industry that is helping protect our planet from greenhouse gases. Traditional hydroelectric power is the dam, which stops the flow of water and releases it through turbines at high speed. This process can have negative impacts on marine life, flora, and people.

Innovation Details

VIVACE is a hydroelectric generator made up of large open boxes with cylinders that sit at the bottom of a river or ocean. The cylinders take advantage of vortex shedding from the currents, similarly to trout. As water currents moves over the cylinders, it creates vortices that make them move up and down. Each bobbing cylinder moves a magnet up and down a metal coil, creating a DC current. The DC current is changed to AC, which can then be used to power homes and buildings. Cylinder oscillations are slow (about one cycle/sec), creating no direct physical threat to fish or other organisms.

Biological Model

Fish can use a significant amount of energy when swimming for long periods of time or in rough waters. While swimming upstream, rainbow trout are able to save energy by using the vortices that come from the water currents to their advantage. Vortex Induced Vibration (VIV) occurs when vortices are released (or “shed”) on the downstream side of objects, such as rocks or other fish, in a fluid current. This shedding alternates from one side of an object to the other, creating a pressure imbalance that results in an oscillatory lift. Trout adjust their swimming behavior to produce a ‘slalom-like’ movement between the vortices , to take advantage of the oscillatory lift and use less energy while swimming.