The European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC) is a major event in the calendar for most people involved in wave and tidal energy research. After the impact that COVID had on the 2021 event, there was a celebratory atmosphere as HAPiWECers Dr Ally Price, Dr Adam Stock, Dr Brian Seller and Dr Tom Davey made their way to sunny Bilbao to present a paper in person on the HAPiGYM (find it here!)
Not only were the venue and hosts fantastic, but there were experts from across all of wave energy in attendance, enabling the team to spend many a HAPiHOUR (patent pending) discussing technical and philosophical aspects of wave energy, with the occasional accompanying vino tinto or cerveza to help lubricate the conversations.
Importantly, the team were able to present and discuss the project with people from across industry and academia, which has led to increased sign up to take part in the HAPiGYM comparative evaluation that forms the heart of the HAPiWEC project (read more about HAPiGYM here). Feedback from the attendees was very positive, with interest in HAPiGYM from WEC designers, control engineers, PTO designers and experimentalists alike.
Whilst in Bilbao we were treated to a wonderful dinner at the Guggenheim museum (not to mention Brian and Tom’s discovery of “Cattle Chops”), where a trip to the “infinite room” (see photo) topped the art exhibition and a local choir performed note perfect songs between courses.
Whilst the daytime heat levels were a bit of a struggle at times for our Scotland-based team, EWTEC was a delight. The team made new connections, reinforced old ones, and spread the word about the advantages of control co-design, rapid prototyping and wave tank comparative evaluations. If you were at EWTEC then we probably met and had a chat – please do follow up with us when you can! If you couldn’t make it this year then we look forward to seeing you at the next one in 2025 by which time we will be able to tell you all about the great success that the HAPiWEC project was!