Wave Power
October 15, 2006
"Imagine four bratwursts in the ocean, half underwater like submarines. Waves are surging at them from the front and the bratwursts are trying to ride them."
David Lindley's bratwursts are neither the beginning of a joke nor part of a cooking class. Instead, the British engineer's symbolic sausages stand for a milestone in energy technology -- wave power.
Portuguese for wave
The first commercial wave power station in the world is located near Agucadoura off the northern coast of Portugal. So far it has only been used for test projects and demonstrations, but the plant is scheduled to start delivering power as early as this fall.
Lindley is the director of the relatively young Scottish company that developed the wave system, called Ocean Power Delivery. In reality, the bratwursts are 30-meter (98.4-foot) long steel cylinders linked together in groups of four.
"The tubes continually rise and fall and the motion turns the hydraulic pistons located between them," he said. "This pumps high pressure oil into an attached hydraulic motor, which then runs an electric generator."
Room to grow
The new wave park -- the first wind park in the sea -- will soon be expanded. Twelve new cylinders are to be anchored to the ocean bottom five kilometers (3.1 miles) off the Portuguese coast.
Together they will only be able to produce about two megawatts of electricity. However, plans for an additional 110 cylinders are in the works, which would produce enough electricity for 15,000 households.
"There are many coastal areas that would be suitable for a wave park," said Lindley, mentioning Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, South Africa, South America and the US.
Energy in European waters
A recent status report from the European marine energy alliance called Europe's Atlantic Coast "highly energetic" and estimated that nearly 300 gigawatts of electricity could be drawn from it. It would take 250 to 300 nuclear power plants to produce that much energy.
It's no coincidence that the first commercial wave power station was developed in Portugal. The Portuguese government had decided to pay an ample 22 cents for each kilowatt hour supplied.
"Portugal will have five wave parks in five years at the latest," said Veronica La Regina from the Research Center for Wave Energy in Lisbon. "By that time the environmental tests will have been completed and the best locations will have been found."
Bratwurst in Portugal, dragons in Wales
In Britain, regenerative energy is also catching on. Next year, a Danish consortium is planning to send out its "wave dragon" off the southwestern coast of Wales.
These cylinders, decked out with dragon-like wings to catch the waves, are expected to supply over 70 megawatts of electricity -- enough for 60,000 households.