Forecasting the Future of Ocean Power  

Greentech Media has released a report on the future of ocean power, identifying 81 projects underway - Trawling for $500 million in ocean power

The emerging ocean power industry is poised to grow from less than 10 megawatts of capacity worldwide today to more than 1 gigawatt in six years, reaching a market worth more than $500 million annually, according to a report by Greentech Media and the Prometheus Institute scheduled for publication next week.

The report, "Forecasting the Future of Ocean Power," offers a comprehensive look at the technologies, players and market outlook for an industry that is currently dominated by developments in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Norway, Ireland and Australia.

In six years, more than $2 billion will be invested to build commercial ocean wave power farms and another $2 billion will go towards research and development globally, said report co-authors Daniel Englander and Travis Bradford. Englander is a Greentech Media analyst while Bradford is the president of the Prometheus Institute.

The concept of using waves and tides to generate electrical power isn't new. The first patent for an ocean power device was filed in France in the 18th century, while wave motor designs were pursued in the California during the 19th and 20th centuries. However, researchers and entrepreneurs truly dived into the field in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when the oil crisis spurred some renewable energy developments.

The current push for clean energy has renewed interest in ocean power projects, and most of the current designs originated in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The industry's 35 most active companies have received just over $500 million in investments since 2001, the report said. The money has come from a variety of sources, including venture capital, loans and certain types of government funding.

Only a handful of companies have reported revenues, however. And the industry faces tough challenges in engineering, installing and operating equipment that can generate power at attractive prices.

Ocean energy resources are abundant and reliable, while the size and energy content of waves can be predicted from three to five days in advance. The currents and tides, in fact, are 832 times denser than the air that drives wind turbines.

The ocean power industry has another key advantage that other renewable energy sectors don't have. It can shorten the time needed for research and development by re-engineering proven technologies from the offshore oil and gas, wind power and shipbuilding industries.

"Technology transfer between traditional marine and wind industries and the ocean power industry has allowed many companies to move rapidly into advanced research and development," wrote Englander and Bradford. "As such, the development bottleneck in ocean power often occurs in the scaling-up stage and not the device design stage."

The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Ireland are among the top ocean power project developers in the world, according to the International Energy Association. In 2006, the association identified 81 projects – from university and government-led research to private industry initiatives

Four times a day, without fail, New York City's East River will change directions. It's been doing that for ages and will continue to do so long after we are gone. The tides are a constant, powerful force, and the folks at Verdant Power are on Roosevelt Island experimenting with a way to draw energy from them without impeding their flow or harming the local wildlife.

The Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project gives Verdant Power the rare opportunity to test turbines that were developed by Dean Corren, their director of technology. Submerged beneath the surface of the river, these turbines turn passively to face the tides the same way a weather vane would. What makes these turbines special is that unlike dams and barrages, they will employ a kinetic hydropower method will have little to no effect on the local ecosystem.

So far, the tests have been very promising. They are drawing power successfully, and in the two years they have been monitoring the project, there has been no evidence of any harm to local fish or birds. While the flow of the tides are strongest and the turbines are getting the bulk of their work done, the fish aren't even around. They prefer to save their energy for when the tide is weaker. Of course, during that time, the turbines are not turning. Also, the fish there tend to spend their time near the banks of the river, and the turbines are in the depths near the center. In fact, Verdant Power has gathered so much new data about local fish and bird populations that biologists have benefited from the project.