Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh, Salter is widely credited for leading the modern scientific pursuit of wave energy in the 1970s, in response to the oil crisis. A giant in his field, he dedicated his life to combating climate change.
Salter’s work on wave energy led to the eponymous ’Salter’s Duck’ device in 1974. Later renamed the ‘Edinburgh Duck’, it was capable of converting wave energy to electricity at high efficiency. Heavily studied in the 1970s and 80s, it directly inspired the Pelamis Wave Power device, which became the first offshore wave machine to generate electricity into the grid.
Pelamis went on to build and test five additional machines including a deployment at the Aguçadoura test site, in northern Portugal, where CorPower Ocean recently installed its first commercial scale device.
In 1977, Salter designed and built the world’s first multi-directional wave tank at the University of Edinburgh. This included feedback control systems across 89 wave-making flaps capable of absorbing reflected waves, propagating along the water surface.
A Specialist Advisor to wave energy company Aquamarine Power, Salter also provided input on the development of the Oyster wave energy converter.
In later years, he engaged in broader solutions to mitigate climate change. In particular, he argued for the use of marine cloud brightening as a geoengineering technique to reflect a small fraction of incoming sunlight back into space, offsetting global warming.
Appointed MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 2004, for services to engineering, Salter went on to receive the Royal Academy of Engineering Sustained Achievement Award in 2012.
Paying tribute, CorPower Ocean Lead Scientist Jörgen Hals Todalshaug, said: “Stephen established research activity on wave energy in the mid-70s which has maintained importance and relevance until today. He continuously developed new insights while inspiring and tutoring many skilled engineers across the wave energy community.”
“Stephen made a significant contribution in developing laboratory methods, equipment for wave generation and device testing,” he added. “Through laboratory experiments his research group showed how the principle of impedance matching from electrical engineering also applies to energy conversion from ocean waves. This principle has also been guiding the development of CorPower Ocean’s technology.
“Stephen has been and will continue to be a great inspiration to anybody delving into wave energy, and we are hugely thankful for the knowledge he contributed to the field. May he rest in peace.”
