Where Is Wave Energy Used?

Wave energy has been picking up some long deserved attention the last few months as a possible energy platform for a power starved world. So, where is wave energy used now?

Wave energy is based on the rather simple idea that the ocean is a power behemoth. It contains vast amount of energy in the form of waves. Don’t believe me? Pop over to a video site and pull up some videos of tsunamis and the destruction they cause. While most people focus on the water, it is actually the energy pushing through the water that does the damage.

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So, where is wave energy used at the moment? The answer is nowhere as of the writing of this article. This energy platform is very early in its development. There are projects planned for a number of locations, but none can be said to have been implemented in a full, commercially viable manner.

The strongest effort made to date was in Portugal. An energy company called Enersis teamed up with the Lisbon Technical Institute to build a project off the coast in the north of the country. The project was supposed to produce 2.2 megawatts of energy using a Pelamis wave energy machine. The project actually was launched, but the machines had issues and the funding ran out. The project has not been rescued and seems unlikely to be saved given the world economic climate.

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Wave energy is like any other form of energy. There are fits and starts, problems and false steps. Sooner or later, however, things will get figured out. As of 2010, projects are either being considered or implemented in locations ranging from California and Oregon in the States to Israel in the Middle East and Scotland in the United Kingdom.

Wave energy might not be used anywhere yet, but there is little doubt it will become a part of the energy solution for the world in the future.

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