In total agreement with you there Waz. However, implicit in your response is that such alternate systems are natural competitors to Protean, and, IMHO, I don't believe they are - I didn't throw in that link for that reason.
Here's my actual reasoning and apologies in advance for length of post.
We're targeting small remote coastal communities - small islands with limited (land) area, so solar farms may never be practical and wind too expensive to deploy when you're so remote.
However, despite the large areas of water surrounding those islands, there are competing interests for space there too - fishing and tourism industries obviously - often are their only source of revenue - so any future wave farm has to be efficient in scale/sea area - and not conflict with existing licensing rights - whether formal or informal.
So, along comes Protean. It's lightweight, easy to deploy and array. Easy to move around with smaller craft, access and repair. The buoys are small, with each unit having an output controlled by their modular size (single/array)making planning in relation to demand very easy. Arrays then build capacity incrementally.
It provides communities with a very quick entry to a renewable source of energy, enabling them to adapt system scale to their emerging/developing energy needs - including moving the system to harvest the best wave conditions if required (i.e. simple to test response - just drop in a few buoys and measure output, much harder to do that accurately with bigger systems and no swimming pools available to test half-sized versions LOL).
Early consumers of said power to be (presumably) essential services, desalination, communications support, and so on. Reliance on diesel is then progressively phased out - assuming advances in battery technology allow the tyranny of distance to be overcome.
As time progresses, and communities grow, perhaps a larger scale form of wave technology may need to be considered such as in the link. Does this spell the end for Protean in that location ?
I think not. In fact, given the limitations of water space for access noted above, the optimum solution may be a hybrid combination of systems, with Protean set up to harvest the in-board water that larger systems cannot feasibly exploit (remembering that other systems we are seeing are anchored permanently to the sea bed and need depth - e.g. the one in the link is to be 26 feet across full scale !)
So in a sense Protean can provide an early entry "apprenticeship" role, proving up in stages it's reliability and sustainability, allowing communities to grow their systems at their own pace.
And the potential to work in synergy with other systems is unchallenged logistically - meaning it doesn't become redundant - you just make synergy work for you or redeploy same hardware to another location needing power support. Process then repeats.
No other system IMO has this versatility, since so called "competitors" are all needing an absolute commitment, substantial setting up costs and then permanent anchoring. If they are already in place, Protean can be introduced to prime the overall system further.
Of course commercially, Protean will need to pursue contracts/commitments in it's own right - business cant grow without that - my point is all these other advantages set it apart. And once you're committed to another system, a concept like Protean may be the only available plug-in.
Cheers to all. BC
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