Carbon-free ocean energy: l.a. tests scheduled

According to the US Energy Information Administration, carbon-free, ocean-wave energy could have supplied about 64 per cent of the country’s utility-scale generated electricity in 2021 – if the power could be captured.

A Stockholm-based startup is planning to test the waters of an untapped source of clean energy at the Port of Los Angeles in California’s San Pedro Bay. Eco Wave Power, which has pioneered wave-power installations in Israel and Gibraltar, has unveiled plans for a pilot wave-power project that will, in coming months, extract power from ocean waves at the AltaSea campus — within the Port of Los Angeles — to generate electricity. The pilot will be Eco Wave’s first in the United States.

Consisting of floating paddles mounted to piers or wharfs, Eco Wave’s technology generates power from waves as small as 0.5m high. As incoming waves move the paddles up and down, they add pressure to a hydraulic system that, in turn, drives a generator to produce electricity. With eight paddles, each about the size of a small car, the Los Angeles pilot project will take up about 21m of wharf frontage, while its energy-conversion unit will sit inside a standard shipping container. The system will provide an installed power capacity of 100kW per hour, enough to potentially power about 80 average homes, although the actual generated power will depend on wave heights and periods.

“Wave power is the least intermittent source of renewable energy. As such, wave energy can be used to stabilise other renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, thus creating stable renewable energy generation,” says Eco Wave founder and CEO Inna Braverman.