Wave energy is one of those ideas that 100's of clever people have had independently over the years and not a single one has been able to make it work reliably and cost effectively.
We've seen a wide variety of prototypes, some even made it to net power out but absolutely nothing came close to winning the prize. (Though that didn't stop the government from pumping large amounts of subsidy into some of these.)
When you compare 'wind' to 'waves' (or tides, for that matter) the environment is even more hostile, the power transportation problem more acute and the engineering challenges incredibly more formidable and the maintenance headaches harder still.
Having mostly stationary waterborne structures is hard enough and commands skills that are rare and very expensive (think oilrigs). Now change that to dynamic structures which drive generators, add in storms, salt water and interference with shipping and you're looking at a very expensive and complex mixture. It will take extremely deep pockets to pull this off successfully, with the inbuilt assumption of a number of false starts and resulting re-engineering.
Elon Musk will likely walk on Mars (or die on impact) before we will see widespread adoption of tidal energy for electricity generation on Earth. Which is a pity, because it seems such a good idea.
500 KW (now derated to 250KW), it's neat but that's piddly little bits of power for an installation that size. A single present day wind turbine will produce up to 3 MW continuously rather than pulsed.
Pity I didn't know about it when I toured Scotland a couple of years ago looking at their renewable energy installations.
The problem with wave energy is not to make a device that makes energy from waves, but to make one that can withstand the storms that invariably are present wherever there is wave power resources, and at the same time remain efficient. Most wave power prototypes have ended up as wreckage during the pilot period.
We've seen a wide variety of prototypes, some even made it to net power out but absolutely nothing came close to winning the prize. (Though that didn't stop the government from pumping large amounts of subsidy into some of these.)
When you compare 'wind' to 'waves' (or tides, for that matter) the environment is even more hostile, the power transportation problem more acute and the engineering challenges incredibly more formidable and the maintenance headaches harder still.
Having mostly stationary waterborne structures is hard enough and commands skills that are rare and very expensive (think oilrigs). Now change that to dynamic structures which drive generators, add in storms, salt water and interference with shipping and you're looking at a very expensive and complex mixture. It will take extremely deep pockets to pull this off successfully, with the inbuilt assumption of a number of false starts and resulting re-engineering.
Elon Musk will likely walk on Mars (or die on impact) before we will see widespread adoption of tidal energy for electricity generation on Earth. Which is a pity, because it seems such a good idea.