Introduction Background Current Developments Current Status
Waves form a potentially large world-wide resource estimated at more than 2 TW (Ref. 1). There are several regions around the world with high incident wave power levels (see following Figure ), which are particularly well suited to exploiting this renewable energy source. To date, the attempts to design and deploy cost-efficient devices have met with limited success (the main success being using wave energy to power several hundred navigation buoys). However, the last five years have seen a resurgence of interest in wave energy throughout the world, with several companies currently developing and deploying new devices that represent a significant improvement over older concepts. The reasons for this development and the current activities that have resulted are outlined in the following sections.
Figure: Global Distribution of wave power levels in KW/m of crest length.
Ref. 1: World Energy Council, 'Renewable energy resources: opportunities and constraints 1990-2020', London, 1993
The European Commission has prepared an electronic brochure titled "Wave Energy Utilization in Europe". This is a pdf file and is 3.8Mb in size.