Our planet is a water world, covered with 70 percent oceans. For centuries, it’s been widely known that the high seas can generate energy, if harnessed appropriately. With today’s renewables market rapidly expanding, it’s no wonder then that wave energy has recently gained traction as a contemporary, clean energy source. Two companies have jointly completed a marine hydrokinetic convertor, the OE Buoy, to leverage wave power as a renewable, green energy source.

The city of Portland, Oregon is corporate headquarters to Vigor, a marine and industrial fabrication company that has had a long-standing record of cutting edge engineering projects. For this endeavor, Vigor teamed up with Irish wave-power pioneer Ocean Energy in a collaborative effort to push marine hydrokinetic technologies forward. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) helped to fund the $12 million design project.

Weighing 826 tons, the OE Buoy wave device measures 125 feet long, 59 feet wide and 68 feet tall. It will be deployed at the U.S. Navy Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) on the windward side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, off the coast of Naval Base Pearl Harbor.

The buoy has the potential to generate up to 1.25 megawatts of electrical power. In other words, it has enough utility-quality electricity supply to support marine-based data centers, desalination plants, naval autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) power platforms, offshore fish farming and off-grid applications for remote island communities. Besides that, the buoy has the capacity to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, making it a cleaner, more sustainable source of renewable energy.

“This first-of-its kind wave energy convertor is scalable, reliable and capable of generating sustainable power to facilitate a range of use-cases that were previously unimaginable or just impractical,” said John McCarthy, CEO of Ocean Energy. “This internationally significant project will be invaluable to job creation, renewable energy generation and greenhouse gas reduction. Additionally, technology companies will be able to benefit from wave power through the development of OE Buoy devices as marine-based data storage and processing centers. The major players in Big Data are already experimenting with subsea data centers to take advantage of the energy savings by cooling these systems in the sea. OE Buoy now presents them with the potential double-benefit of ocean cooling and ocean energy in the one device.”

Source: INHABITAT