WAVE ENERGY BUILDING

Is this the future of New Energy? 80-90% of waves have enough power to generate electricity, making wave energy much less intermittent than other renewables.

Best currently agreed upon assumptions are that the first “wave parks” will be deployed 1-3 miles offshore, will have cables running to shore to carry the energy generated and will create 50 megawatts over a few square miles.

How about building offshore wind turbines interspersed among the buoys?

(Note to Seattle Times headline writer: This is not "tidal" energy, it is "wave" energy. See TIDE ENERGY IN NOVA SCOTIA)

Tapping tidal energy: the wave of the future
Sandi Doughton, October 7, 2007 (Seattle Times)

WHO
Finavera Renewables (Kevin Banister, VP), Pelamis, Snohomish County Public Utility District, Oregon State University (OSU)

The Sleeping Giant of New Energy. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
New developments in wave energy are actively being tested off Oregon’s coast and OSU is preparing to be a hydrokinetics research center.

WHEN
- The first wave energy buoy on the West Coast was deployed by Finavera Labor day Weekend of 2007. The test will run another month. An OSU technology’s deployment is scheduled for the 1st weekend in October.
- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has some 50 applications pending in the US for wave energy development.

WHERE
- The first wave-energy buoy on the West Coast was deployed 2½ miles off Newport, Ore. - Finavera has another test scheduled to initiate in 2009 off the Washington state coast.
- Pelamis, based in Scotland, will deploy off Portugal’s coast later this year.

WHY
- At least 40 different competing technologies seek to best capture the up and down movement of waves and translate that into electrical energy.
- OSU, a top academic center for WTC research, is building a US R & D center with coastal and lab testing facilities. Berths, moorings and testing equipment for power measurements and data collection will be made available to companies with wave energy concepts.
- The OSU technology to be deployed this month incorporates a magnet and coil to create an electrical current with wave motions.
- Even the conservative, fossil-fuel oriented Electric Power Research Institute acknowledges that wave energy could provide 10% of US electricity.

A schematic of the unique OSU buoy using magnet and coil. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Craig Collar, Snohomish County Public Utility District: "It's the Kitty Hawk days for tidal energy…"
- Annette von Jouanne, engineering professor, OSU: "We want to advance wave-energy technology, encourage companies to demonstrate their devices and ... promote Oregon as an optimal location…Wave energy is starting off where wind energy started about 20 years ago…"
- Bannister, Finavera: "We think our design is simple and easy to maintain…But clearly people with other approaches think those are the right way to go…I'm constantly surprised by how many ideas there are…There will be some sorting over the next few years and the better ideas — this is a bad pun — will float to the surface."