Waves - A source for Renewable Energy

Nowadays many companies are implicated in the development of devices capable of producing alternative energy and currently the most efficient are solar and wind energies. But there is one technology that could be successful and compete against solar and wind power - wave power.

A company which is willing to develop full-scale machines in order to produce wave energy is called Orecon and it has received until now $24 million from Advent Ventures, Northzone Ventures, Venrok and Wellington Partners. If their research will meet the expectations, then they will begin to manufacture and to commercialize wave power machines.

Orecon has already developed a project and their idea consisting of a buoy destined to crop power. The power coming from the waves hit the buoy and when this happens, the pressure created bestirs a turbine which finally produces the long-expected energy. According to the U.K. company, a system like that will produce around 1.5 megawatts of energy and it will last more than 25 years.

Among the U.K., Ireland is one of the countries that is trying to install wave power systems. WaveBob, an Irish company, is already testing an 1/4 scale device in the waters near Galway and in a few years they it will be complete and will produce 1 megawatt of energy.

Currently, this technology is very expensive and they are not very efficient (only 250 kilowatts per system) and another set-backs are the environmental challenges. Some reports say that this technology is expected to be commercialized as of 2010 or 2015.