engineering

Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant

Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant rather than just read about it. In short: The Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant is a wave power plant constructed by Ente Vasco de la Energía (EVE), the Basque energy agency, in the bay of Mutriku in the Bay of Biscay. It is the world's first breakwater wave power plant with a multiple turbine arrangement.

Key takeaways

Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant is a wave power plant constructed by Ente Vasco de la Energía (EVE), the Basque energy agency, in the bay of Mutriku in the Bay of Biscay. It is the world's first breakwater wave power plant with a multiple turbine arrangement. The plant has a capacity of 296 kW from 16 turbo generator sets. It was inaugurated on July 8, 2011.

Design and construction The Mutriku plant was built by Ente Vasco de la Energía, using oscillating water column (OWC) technology from Voith Hydro. After the design for the Mutriku breakwater was completed in 2005, the Basque government's Department of Transport and Public Works asked EVE to design a wave power plant integrated into the breakwater. OWC technology was chosen as it had been previously tested (for example, at the Islay LIMPET device) and could be easily integrated into the existing breakwater design. Construction of the power plant began in 2006, with completion planned by 2009. The plant was built into a 100-meter section of the breakwater on a 0.50 meter deep foundation, measuring 14.24 meters wide and 102 meters long. 16 air chambers were constructed on the foundation, using prefabricated parts. Each air chamber has a permanently submerged opening to allow ingress of sea water into the air column. A fixed-pitch Wells turbine turbo generator set is connected to each air chamber. Each turbo generator unit is oriented vertically, measures 2.83 meters tall by 1.25 meters wide and weighs approximately 1,200 kilograms (2,600 lb). These have an individual rated capacity of 18.5 kW, with the 16 units providing a total capacity of 296 kW. This equipment was manufactured by Voith Hydro.

Operational history The Mutriku power plant was inaugurated on July 8, 2011. It produces enough energy to supply approximately 100 households. During its first five years of operation, it supplied over 1.3 GWh of power to the grid. In 2020, EVE announced that the Mutriku plant had produced a cumulative total of 2 GWh, making it the record holder for most electricity produced by a wave power plant, as well as most cumulative operating hours for a wave power plant. A study published in 2018 calculated that the capacity factor of the Mutriku power plant from 2014 to 2016 was 0.11. The researchers behind this study proposed that capacity factor could be increased by improving control of turbine speeds. From 2016 onwards, various monitoring efforts were implemented in order to assess the environmental impact of underwater sound emissions produced by the power plant. EVE announced in October 2022 that the plant delivered a total of 2.7GWh of energy to the grid. The turbines have an annual pneumatic to electric conversion efficiency of 30%. As of October 2022, the turbines are approaching their end-of-life and there are proposals to replace them with newer, higher efficiency (50%) turbines. As Voith has discontinued the development of the product, a new manufacturer has to be found. The project budget for the turbine replacement is expected to be 3.2 million Euros (vat excl.) and the replacement would take 42 months. By the end of 2023, the total lifetime generation was over 3 GWh, with 266 MWh in 2023.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant

In research: Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2011 establishments in the Basque Country (autonomous community), Buildings and structures in Gipuzkoa, Debabarrena, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant in simple terms?

Why does Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant.