A light buoy, located in a sea route where there is a lot of ocean traffic, is an essential facility for ship’s safe navigation.
The power system for a light buoy used in Korea makes use of photovoltaic system. But, the power to be generated by the photovoltaic system is changed according to the amount of sunlight or weather conditions during winter season especially. And the power shortage of the light buoy system can occur due to the lack of solar energy.
Moreover, the power consumption of light buoy system is increasing gradually since the intensive control system for the remote monitoring of sea route has been recently adopted for the effective buoy management. And because of light buoy’s structural characteristics, there is only limited capacity to use more solar cells to generate higher power output.
Therefore, it is not easy to supply the stable power to the light buoy system.
This paper aims to show how a hybrid power generation system can be designed with solar and wave energy that is suitable for a light buoy and be able to generate power for sufficient power supplies.
Solar and wave energy complement each other. When solar power is not available in bad weather conditions, wave power can be used as a natural alternative. The hybrid power generation system can combines both energies and provides a consistent power supply.
This paper examines the basic principles of the photovoltaic cell and OWC-type wave energy device. And suggests how a solar / wave hybrid power generation system for a light buoy could be consisted.
Also, this paper describes a design of a MPPT controller to improve output of photovoltaic cell and describes a design of a power & load controller to control the hybrid power generation system.