Home >

Hydro Power

2005-02-28
Waves, particularly those of large amplitude, contain large amounts of energy. Wave energy is, in effect, a stored and concentrated form of solar energy, since the winds that produce waves are caused by pressure differences in the atmosphere arising from solar heating. The strong winds blowing across the Atlantic Ocean create large waves, making the west coast of Europe ideally suited to wave energy schemes.

Wave energy is a relatively new technology and research was at its most intense during the 1970s and 80s under various government and industry sponsored programmes. Wave energy research is ongoing and has benefited from funding provided by the European Commission. As a result, a wide variety of wave energy devices have been proposed over the last three decades, comprising many different shapes, sizes and energy extraction methods. Although most of them never passed beyond the outline design stage, many have been the object of research and development work and several have been deployed in the sea as prototypes or demonstration schemes.