The leading company in the offshore wave power
generation industry today is Ocean Power Technologies out of New Jersey.
Their patented PowerBuoy system (shown below) employs the use of buoys
to move up and down with each passing wave. As the buoy travels vertically,
it pumps a piston through a generator, generating electricity. The
electricity is then routed through a cable down to the ocean floor where
it is anchored and meets up with the other PowerBuoy cables from the system.
They are all linked and run back to shore as one cable.
A system of these PowerBuoys looks like this:
Ocean Power Technologies received a $4.3 million
contract from the US Navy in 2002 to construct their first major wave power
generation project off the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In addition to
this, $2 million was provided by the US government when President Bush
signed the 2002 Defense Appropriations Budget. This Oahu system will
consist of 20 PowerBuoys, each measuring roughly 4.5 m in diameter.
The entire system will generate 1 megawatt, about enough to power 1000
homes, although this system's power output will be used for naval purposes
only.