Reliability assessment of electrical energy supply to agricultural consumers powered by a wave energy converter

The existing types of wave energy converters are analyzed. They can be divided into several main types: an oscillating body converters (devices that move in a vertical or horizontal plane relative to the water surface, under the action of waves), an oscillating water column (devices that include a chamber partially submerged under water, having an open part below), and overflow devices. It is shown that such devices can be used to supply power to agricultural consumers located near the seas and oceans. A considered generating device consists of eight converters connected in two groups, two batteries, an inverter and a transformer. The main components of the converters are the turbine, gearbox and generator. Situations leading to the interruption of the consumer's power supply are identified. They include the failure of the wave energy converter, battery, inverter, and transformer. Expressions to find the probability of such situations occurrence are made. Their numerical values are calculated based on statistical data on the generating device components failure rate. The time to failure distribution law of the wave energy converter components was assumed to be exponential. It was found that the probability of interruption of the consumer's power supply for the considered system is practically equal to zero due to the high reliability of the backup source, which was the centralized power system. The simulation of the generating device operation for 10 years was carried out. It is shown that with an increase in the operating time of the device, the probability of inverter failure also increases. It negatively affects the reliability indicators of the entire generating device operation. This is a consequence of the fact that inverter’s failure rate is the highest among the device components.