Concept in Ocean Wave Energy
Here’s a video depicting one of variations on the theme of extracting energy from ocean waves. Though I’ve seen countless numbers, I haven’t studied each of the variants thoroughly, so it’s only a guess when I say that this seems as practical and rugged as any.
The claim that this puts the final nail in the coffin of fossil fuels, of course, is untrue. What drives those nails is the cost-effectiveness of renewables or nuclear, and, even if this concept were to achieve scale (which it won’t), it would never compete on the only parameter that really matters: LCOE (levelized cost of energy).
As the developers acknowledge, the biggest challenge for wave energy devices is surviving the largest storms. This device has been in the water with half scale since since 2011 without ANY major storm related failures. I do not know of any other wave energy device with such a record.
The developers are looking to scale the device to 6 MW which will fit nicely with offshore wind turbines.
The obvious location for these is at offshore wind farms where sharing transmission infrastructure will reduce per MWh cost for both technologies.
I could see hybrid projects of wave plus offshore wind coming in at similar cost to offshore wind alone, whilst offering slightly better 24 hour ahead predictability.
Excellent. I LOVE the idea hybridizing this with offshore wind.