You can imagine
that the oceans are actually the largest battery.
We're storing huge amounts of energy in the oceans.
The wave motion can be very deep.
It can extend down several hundred meters,
and once it gets to the near shore, from about 50 meters,
the whole water column is moving backwards and forwards.
As we search for ways to reduce our reliance
on fossil fuels, some are looking
to a largely untapped potential source of renewable energy.
In theory, waves off the coast of the United States alone
could generate over two trillion kilowatt hours
of electricity a year,
enough to power more than half of the country.
Waves intensify and subside not as quickly as the wind,
and that means that it can produce
a smoother power generation curve.
One of the potential advantages of wave energy is
that it could act as a complementary source of power,
compared to other renewables on the grid
if it were to be scaled up to a commercial scale.
For decades, engineers have been trying
to convert wave energy into electricity
but a host of technological
and financial challenges have complicated their efforts.
In the years from around 2006 to 2015,
there were a spate of bankruptcies in the sector,
and this was largely because of a lack
of kind of continuous proven projects out at sea
with reliable electricity generation.
Since then, companies have been trying
to develop the technologies at a steadier pace
and with a smaller cash burn.
But the same questions remain.
Can companies develop devices
and technologies that actually work?
Is wave energy just a novelty or something
that can become a major renewable energy source?
The sea is a very challenging environment
within which to operate a power project.
So seawater is corrosive and conditions are very rough.
So this means that power projects
don't have a very long lifetime
and it increases operating and maintenance costs.
Partly because of that,
many early wave energy projects hit rough waters,
such as the Pelamis wave energy converter in Portugal
and the Islay LIMPET project in Scotland,
but that hasn't stopped others from trying.
Companies are focused on testing projects out at sea,
proving their durability, trying to raise capital
and bring down cost.
The sector hasn't really converged
around one single technology design
and companies are kind of undecided
about which design works best.
Finland-based AW Energy is a veteran in the sector.
The first proof of concept of the company's device
was made in the '90s after diver Rauno Koivusaari
observed the strong back and forth movement of a hatch cover
in a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea.
The waves are generated far from the coastline.
So the wind blows on the surface of the water
causing the water particles to rotate.
And that rotation extends deep down below the surface
and the waves can be very long,
they can be several hundred meters long,
and as they come into the near shore,
this rotational energy turns into an elliptical energy
and eventually backwards and forwards
that you probably have noticed if you've been swimming
on the seashore in large waves, you're pulled in and out.
That's the energy that we're extracting
but there's a sweet spot where we deploy.
So around 10 to 15 meters of water depth,
that's where there's still strong wave energy coming in.
After years of research, prototyping and testing,
the company has deployed WaveRoller,
a 350-kilowatt device in the waters off Portugal.
WaveRoller has an 18-meter wide
and 10-meter high steel panel fixed to the seabed
via a floatable foundation.
The panel moves back and forth with the waves,
capturing the energy.
It's submerged in the depth of 15 meters
so it's protected from the extreme waves.
We generate electricity by capturing the movement
with hydraulic circuitry
in a machine room underneath the surface.
That hydraulic energy we turn to electricity
with hydraulic accumulators and hydraulic motors,
and also a generator.
The WaveRoller has survived large waves at sea
for over a year and delivered electricity
via an underwater cable to the grid in Portugal.
Meanwhile, the company has won a 2.5 million Euro grant
to work on an upgraded version of the WaveRoller,
aiming to increase the electricity generation capacity
to one megawatt.
The upscaled device would have a bigger panel,
two power takeoff units,
and improved software to control the energy production.
We have taken into use a wave prediction algorithm
that kind of tells us what kind of waves
are coming in to our device.
That gives us a few seconds to prepare
for capturing more energy
and the difference in that is significant.
Our future plans are to deliver technology
around the world.
So I'm hoping we can be working on delivering technology
to projects in Asia
and also in the American continent as well.
Meanwhile, Israeli company Eco Wave Power
is taking a different approach
to capturing the power of the ocean.
For the company's founder, Inna Braverman,
developing new sources of renewable energy
is a personal mission.
I was born in Ukraine in 1996
and two weeks after I was born,
the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded,
causing the largest in history nuclear disaster.
I was one of the babies that got hurt
from the negative effects of such explosion.
I had a respiratory arrest and a clinical death.
Luckily my mother, a nurse, approached my crib one time
and gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
which saved my life.
I got a second chance in life
and decided to do something good with it.
Growing up, Inna wanted to be a politician
to positively change the world.
After working as a translator at a renewable energy company,
she decided to change paths.
Solar and wind energy were fully commercialized.
There were a lot of amazing technologies
implemented everywhere.
I saw that wave energy,
although it's an immense source of electricity,
the biggest companies in the world
are trying to develop wave energy with no success.
And there was kind of a race going on in the world
of who is the company that is going to develop
a viable wave energy solution first.
In 2011, the then 24-year-old Inna
co-founded Eco Wave Power.
Instead of installing devices offshore,
the company's devices are attached
to existing breakwaters, jetties and piers.
Our technology is very cost efficient,
especially in comparison to the offshore technologies,
because we don't need any ships, divers,
underwater mooring or cables.
We install on existing manmade structures
and all our expensive equipment, the generator,
the hydraulic conversion unit, the automation,
is located on land, just like a regular power station.
This is the Eco Wave Power conversion unit
that has been operating in Jaffa port since 2014 until 2020.
Here you can see how the technology works.
Basically the floaters are going up and down
and pushing the hydro cylinders
which transmit biodegradable fluid
into land-located accumulators.
A pressure is being built,
the higher the waves, the higher the pressure,
which is used to turn the hydro motor
which is turning the generators.
The whole system is controlled by a smart automation system
which you can see right here.
And in case of a coming storm,
the system automatically raises the floater
above the water level and keeps them in the upward position
until the storm passes.
The company has been operating
a 100-kilowatt grid-connected device in Gibraltar since 2016
which is enough to power 100 households.
Currently Inna and her team are working
on another 100-kilowatt project
at the port of Jaffa in Tel Aviv.
The project will be also the first time in the history
of Israel that wave energy will officially connect
to the electrical grid.
And our goal going forward is to expand it
to all suitable breakwaters in the city of Tel Aviv
and to supply a significant part
of the city's electricity needs.
Today, engineers and entrepreneurs
are still trying to crack wave energy.
Globally, only a few hundred kilowatts
of wave energy are deployed
compared with gigawatts of offshore wind.
But the field has come a long way in recent years,
and with the right engineering solutions
this new power source could eventually become competitive
with more mature renewables, like solar and wind.
I would have a lot more confidence in the success
of wave energy companies today
as opposed to, like, 20 years ago.
But in the next few years,
or maybe the next couple of decades,
it will be more likely to be used in remote locations,
like islands, that are otherwise dependent
on expensive diesel power,
or out at sea on gas decommissioning rigs,
or for powering underwater autonomous vehicles.
So definitely wave energy can compete
with other renewable energy sources,
but I personally believe that this is not a competition.
In order to have a 100% renewable energy friendly world,
we need all renewable energy sources to work together.