Salter's duck (wave energy converter)
Pato de Salter (convertidor de energía de las olas)
- Date
- 1974 · confidence high
- Place
- Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Stephen Salter
- People
- 👤 Stephen Salter1938–2024
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
A floating cam-shaped device that nods with the swell and converts wave motion into electricity with a very high theoretical efficiency. It spurred research into wave energy.
It was presented in Nature in 1974, after the oil crisis; its efficiency could not be demonstrated at sea and the British programme was cancelled in 1982.
What it led to
- the British wave energy programme
- wave devices such as Pelamis and Oyster
- hydrodynamic efficiency calculations