A Spaniard has patented a mast that transforms wind and waves into electricity. His invention challenges diesel in ships

A mast shaken by the wind, the waves pushing without rest: usual scenes in any maritime journey. The interesting thing is that the same movement can serve to generate electricity. A canary who is one step away from being an engineer has designed a system that converts the strength of the ocean into usable energy, with the ambition to reduce the dependence of the diesel in the ships. It is an idea that takes the everyday of the sea and makes it a concrete technical proposal, simple enough to intrigue and ambitious enough to demand validation in the sea.

“In the end it is a three -dimensional generator,” Juan Francisco Sarmiento Medina said in an advance of the Podcast of the Stier Groupand described the mechanism with simple images: “Let’s imagine that my arm is the mast. When the wind comes in front, it clashes, as the mast of a flag, and begins to oscillate. The keel works as a piston of a combustion engine (…) then movement occurs in the x, y y y z axes, all under Faraday’s law,” he explained. That narration of the inventor itself forms the technical spine of the project.

What exactly is the e-mast. In its LinkedIn account the project appears as E-MAST (Energy Mast System) and is presented as a technology that transforms the structural vibration of the mast into clean electrical energy. According to the textthe system integrates an encapsulated rotor without exposed parts, linear generators and piezoelectric elements to convert oscillations into electricity, and can direct part of the induced air under the keel in the form of microburbujas.

The advantages of the inventor are clear: “Without diesel engines, or maintenance. The owner of the boat, as there are no mechanical parts that have to be maintained with oil or that are broken, also reduces costs in that sense,” He pointed to El Español. The inventor also underlines the operational silence due to the absence of external propellers and the total structural integration into existing masts. These benefits, in any case, will require trials to measure power, autonomy and acoustic signature.

Of production patent. The applications of applications published by the author encompasses autonomous marine surveillance, oceanographic research, defense and ecological navigation platforms in protected areas. According to Sarmiento Medina, the e-mast is protected by two patents, ES202430338 and ES202430339, with a favorable report according to the promoter. According to the newspaper La Provinciathe promoter figure around half a million euros international protection and development and has conversations with shipyards in France and the Netherlands to explore production.

The sea still has the last word. Sarmiento says that he is a neighbor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and recognizes that part of his learning and opportunities come from the Stier Group, which has supported his training. This local support, added to the intellectual protection that it declares in its public profile, has allowed to convert a daily element of any ship at the base of an ambitious technological proposal. Now the most difficult part remains: validate the system in the sea. But the idea has already demonstrated something important: that there is still margin to imagine new things, even in an environment as old as navigation.

Images | Juan Francisco Sarmiento Medina

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