More info on this at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelamis_Wave_Energy_Converter .
The company was bought by E.ON and the project was killed. At that time, there were working 450 Kilowatt prototypes (see the video). 450 Kilowatt is a power volume that took wind power plants over three decades (about from 1970 to 2000) to achieve.
The technology was then apparently copied by a Chinese company.
The great thing about wave energy that it is the endless ocean surface which both stores the energy, and transports it through space and time.
By this way, the energy can be harvested far away from the time at which the wind was blowing, and far away from the place where it created waves.
As such, wave power is an ideal complement to wind and solar energy, because it can fill up the grid at the times when the latter are lacking - without expensive storage devices, because the storage, which is the ocean surface, is already there.
The other, extremely brilliant idea in this specific concept is that it limits the force of the elements which the machine is exposed to.
Wave energy converters have the general problem that in storms and high waves, the immense forces tend to destroy the machine.
This device solves that problem by using a mechanical coupling to the ocean surface, a kind of mechanical oscillator. The waves are an oscillation and they couple to the mechanical dimensions of the device, which couples to specific wave lenghts - like an amateur radio receiver. Differently from electromagnetic waves, the power in surface waves increases with longer wave lenghts. If the waves become strong in a storm, their wavelengths become larger, and therefore the mechanical coupling of the device becomes weaker. It just floats on the very big waves.
This protects the device.
https://corpowerocean.com/ This is looking like it has some potential
Sadly a commercial flop. Didn’t generate enough, cost a lot, and maintenance was a nightmare too. Sea water and conditions destroy basically everything, it is rather phenomenal
Underwater tidal turbines showing potential, if we do want to harness sea power. Floating turbines looking to be actually viable though, and less invasive on the maritime environment
Sadly a commercial flop.
Then why did the Chinese copy it and are continuing to develop it?
If the technology really does not work, E.ON should not sit on the patent and block saving fossil fuel, but they should give up that patent. Withholding such a climate-saving patent from being used is a crime against humanity, because climate change kills people.
Didn’t generate enough, cost a lot, and maintenance was a nightmare too.
Citation needed. Also, wind turbine technology took over 30 years, from 1970 to 2000, to arrive at megawatt scale. The experimental plant at my university had 15 kilowatt in 1991. The Pelamis technology has developed much quicker to half a Megawatt scale.
Sea water and conditions destroy basically everything, it is rather phenomenal.
Maritime technology is difficult because of the salt water, yes. Still, sea ships and offshore oil rigs do exist and we have learned lot from that.
Underwater tidal turbines showing potential, if we do want to harness sea power.
They can only operate near shore at suitable locations. The Pelamis plants can operate away from the shore at the large ocean-exposed coasts of Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, California, Mexico, Chile, Argentinia, Australia and Tasmania, South Africa, and so on - which all have a lot of waves. In winter in the North Sea, waves are often six meters high.
The difficulty is to avoid that the large waves destroy the energy converters, and Pelamis apparently solved part of that.
All the best to the Chinese then. Patents should be expired/expiring soon too
