Wave farm

A wave farm – or wave power farm or wave energy park – is a collection of machines in the same location and used for the generation of wave power electricity. Wave farms can be either offshore or nearshore, with the former the most promising for the production of large quantities of electricity for the grid. The first wave farm was constructed in Portugal, the Aguçadoura Wave Farm, consisting of three Pelamis machines. The world's largest is planned for Scotland. A wave farm – or wave power farm or wave energy park – is a collection of machines in the same location and used for the generation of wave power electricity. Wave farms can be either offshore or nearshore, with the former the most promising for the production of large quantities of electricity for the grid. The first wave farm was constructed in Portugal, the Aguçadoura Wave Farm, consisting of three Pelamis machines. The world's largest is planned for Scotland. Funding for a wave farm in Scotland was announced on February 20, 2007 by the Scottish Executive, at a cost of over £4 million, as part of a £13 million funding packages for marine power in Scotland. The farm will be the world's largest with a capacity of 3MW generated by four Pelamis machines. See also: Renewable energy in Scotland. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT), based in Pennington, New Jersey is involved in the development of a wave farm off Cromarty Firth. The PB150 PowerBuoy was successfully deployed at sea in 2011 by a team including Scotland-based Global Maritime Scotland Ltd, Port Services (Invergordon) Ltd and OPT, with the support of the Cromarty Firth Port Authority. The £10 million Saltire prize challenge will be awarded to the first to be able to generate 100 GWh from wave power over a continuous two-year period by 2017 (about 5.7 MW average). Funding for a wave farm known as Wave hub off the north coast of Cornwall, England was approved in June 2007. The Wave hub operates as an extension cable allowing developers to install and operate wave energy generating devices while keeping down connection costs. Four device operators have expressed an interest in using the site which will initially allow up to 20MW of wave energy capacity. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT), based in Pennington, New Jersey is involved in Wave Hub. Located in Cornwall, England, OPT aims to develop its PowerBuoy technology, an innovative renewable energy project, and expects to create the UK's first offshore facility for the demonstration and proving of arrays of wave energy generation devices. A 2017 study estimates that commercial wave farms are not close to being feasible. Wave power in the United States is under development in several locations off the east & west coasts as well as Hawaii. It has moved beyond the research phase and major installations are planned to come on-line within the next few years. Its use to-date has been for situations where other forms of energy production are not economically viable and as such, the power output is currently modest. According to the president of trade association Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, “The total potential off the coast of the United States is 252 million megawatt hours a year.” Despite the absence of current implementation of major projects, there has been significant investment on the part of public utility companies and federal funds for the implementation and economic viability of two new wave power energy centers as of September 30, 2008.