Innovative Renewables Ltd was set-up in March 2008 to start the long process of research, development and commercialisation of the Ship Roll Generator.

The Ship Roll Generator was invented by the director of the company, Christopher Taylor, an ex-seagoing navigator with some 25 years experience.

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The Ship Roll Generator is a wave energy converter which relies on the rolling motion of a ship.

For those of you who have any doubts about the power of the sea, the next time you are at a port container terminal, have a look at the size of one of the containerships and try and imagine its weight. Now enlarge the picture to the right, and see how thousands of tonnes of steel can be thrown about the ocean, like clothes in a tumble-dryer.


Now lets compare the power of the sea to other renewable energy sources:

- A one meter length of a wave in a hurricane produces 1.5MW.

- The maximum total energy output of a typical whole wind turbine is 1MW.

- A flow of 1 tonne of water/second over a 100m high dam produces 1MW.

- 1m² of sand on a hot day in the desert receives 0.0014 MW of sunshine.

The Ship Roll Generator consists of containers filled with fine sand suspended from the top of the vessel’s holds, as shown in the picture to the right. The rolling movement of the vessel is converted into hydraulic mechanical energy (pressure) via hydraulic rams connected to the swinging containers.

Please right click here to download a Ship Roll Generator presentation


Methanol production from CO2 and H2
A vessel of length 100m,suspending 30 containers, synchronised to a wave period of 8s and rolling 50° would produce approximately 24MW of power. However, the frequency of such sea conditions to cause such rolling happening near land would be very small. An unfortunate drawback with all wave energy production systems is that most of the sea regions with a high prevalent frequency of large waves lie far from land. Getting the energy ashore is a big problem. It would be possible to use the wave energy to extract hydrogen from water through electrolysis and then ship the hydrogen ashore. Unfortunately the problems usually associated with compressing, liquefying, storing and transporting hydrogen make it cost prohibitive.

Another idea would be to convert the hydrogen into methanol by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide. The hydrogen and carbon dioxide are combined catalytically to produce methanol using a modified Fischer-Tropsch process. Carbon dioxide is scrubbed from the air by exposure to potassium hydroxide which is converted to potassium carbonate. An electrochemical cell then recovers the carbon dioxide from potassium carbonate.

This would be an ideal solution. The methanol could be stored in tankers at sea, which would be used as refueling points for vessels. Methanol produced in this way contributes zero net carbon dioxide emission when consumed. As shipping is responsible for at least 3% of the worlds CO2 emissions, carbon neutral fuel for ships would be a very useful development.