Wave Energy Poised for Major Breakthrough
March 16, 2025
ByFelicity Bradstock– Mar 16, 2025, 10:00 AM CDT
- An Australian startup is pioneering open-access principles in wave energy research, aiming to accelerate development and deployment of this sustainable power source.
- Wave energy has the potential to provide consistent, baseload power, unlike solar and wind, which can stabilize energy grids and reduce the need for extensive energy storage.
- International interest and investment in wave energy are growing, with significant targets set for ocean energy production by 2050, which could be further boosted by data-sharing and technological advancements.
Wave energy could be primed for a swell of progress thanks to open data sharing. While advancements in wave energy have been piecemeal to date, an Australian startup believes that open-sharing principles can revolutionize research and development in the sector, with potentially huge ramifications for decarbonizing global energy grids.
Waves contain a huge amount of energy. According to a 2023 figure from the United States Energy Information Administration, “the theoretical annual energy potential of waves off the coasts of the United States was estimated to be as much as 2.64 trillion kilowatthours, which is equal to about 63% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation.” The coasts of Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand also offer huge potential for wave energy generation. In Europe, the potential of wave power production is estimated at a whopping 2,800 TWh per year, which is roughly 107.6% of the global nuclear power production as of 2023.
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A novel wave-energy converter trial is currently taking place in Albany on the south-western coast of Australia, led by a research team from the Marine Energy Research Australia (MERA) centre at The University of Western Australia (UWA). The model being tested is a ‘Moored Multi-Mode Multibody’ (M4) wave-energy converter which features two steel frames attached to hinged floats. “As the floats rise and fall with each passing wave, the frames rotate like flapping butterfly wings,” explains a recent Nature article describing the project. “This motion drives the generators in the hinges to create electricity.”
Harvesting energy from our oceans could reshape global clean power production, as it could provide baseload energy production with zero carbon emissions. Unlike solar and wind energies, wave energy would be a constant source of power and could therefore help to stabilize energy grids as renewable energies become more prevalent. This would provide a critical complement to wind and solar power, and greatly lessen the need for energy storage technologies such as lithium-ion batteries. Ultimately, the deployment of wave energy would provide a massive boost to international energy security during the clean energy transition.
The team behind the M4 model off the shores of Albany, Australia emphasizes its model’s potential as a baseload renewable energy. “Waves reaching Albany have travelled uninterrupted for thousands of kilometres across the Southern Ocean,” MERA manager Wiebke Ebeling was recently quoted by Nature. “They’re energy-dense, highly consistent, and show little seasonal variability.”
The team also argues that their research is of particular importance to global wave energy research as they are following open-access principles and sharing their data with anyone who is interested in the project’s findings. “Previously, the wave-energy industry has experienced siloed progress,” says MERA director Christophe Gaudin. “Ours is the first fully open-access, wave-energy project, where we will share the lessons learned and the data collected — as well as the power we generate — openly with everybody.”
Accelerating research and development gains in wave energy would be critical to making it a commercial reality. So far, wave energy has simply been too expensive, too difficult to install, and too disconnected from existing grids to make commercial sense. But as technologies advance, we are getting closer to overcoming these challenges.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is expecting 87 TWh of ocean energy to be produced by 2050. The European Union has introduced policy measures to encourage more wave energy projects, with a goal of developing 1 GW of ocean energy capacity by 2030 and 40 GW by 2050. But if MERA’s approach to data-sharing does indeed provide a boost to technological advancement, this projection could easily be adjusted to a higher rate.
This would have huge impacts on global decarbonization trajectories, provide energy security in an era of demand surges, and provide clean energy alternatives to coastal and island communities that have historically lacked reliable grid connection. Wave energy could even solve the growing problem of AI’s runaway energy footprint. “With such vast potential, wave energy could play a huge role in powering the AI boom,” Forbes recently reported. “Constructing [data centers] near coastal areas would allow them to tap directly into the ocean’s abundant clean energy, creating an efficient solution for growing demand.”
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com
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