I recently read about CorePower and some wave energy concepts. It got me thinking — the oceans contain a huge amount of energy, yet wave energy still seems very underdeveloped compared to solar or wind. I work in the maritime industry and I see how massive offshore projects (like wind farms) have grown over the past decade, but wave energy still seems relatively niche. Why wave energy startups keep failing (and what might change)? Is it mainly engineering challenges, costs, reliability, or something else?
Could wave energy become the next big renewable industry?
byu/WildDoer inenergy
Posted by WildDoer
5 Comments
Moving parts + salt water = 💰 💰💰
Wave power generators could get built on the same foundation as offshore wind turbines, doubling the use out of the transmission lines saves a bunch of money.
I’ve seen fifty different designs done by crazy inventors… I’d hold a competition to find the best.
Yep also wondering why tides haven’t been utilized much.
I don’t think so.
Ocean water is notoriously corrosive and as you mentioned waves are powerful. Those factors mean high spending requirements for maintenance.
I don’t think the energy provided is high enough to cover maintenance costs and provide a high enough return for the investment.
Would love to be proven wrong here as I think the potential is high.
The problem for any new technology, is the cost curve.
A new technology, in general (unless it’s a massive breakthrough), will cost significantly more per MWh to deploy.
So how can a project get backing/finance to be built? Essentially you need to convince investors this is better than sliced bread and often also seek government funding to support it.
With so many technologies being promised as next-gen and the ‘bees knees’, the governmenting funding can become quite diluted or more difficult to secure.
This is why CSP/CST has struggled to gain a foothold. It’s actually pretty ideal for some areas of the grid that suffer the duck curve, as CSP/CST has an inherent 6-8hr storage window, which is about the time from solar peak to peak demand. However I’ve seen several projects die off becausse they just couldn’t beat out solar PV and onshore wind on $/MWh. So they’re not seen as viable and get mothballed.
I’m not an expert in tidal/wave energy, however the ocean is a very aggressive environment. This means more money spent on more robust materials and designs to withstand the harsh environment; which then increases your $/MWh. Also consider higher O&M costs too.
With offshore wind farms, all of the moving mechanical (and electrical components like inverters/transformers) are above the water or high up in the nacelle. This gets them out of the more hazardous/aggressive ocean water. Offshore WF are much more expensive to build compared to onshore, but they can be deployed in areas of much higher wind and can be generally bigger with blade tips closer to the surface (so much bigger swept areas). This means each WTG is in general much bigger. The higher MWh yield helps to offset the higher CapEx/OpEx and make them viable.
Ultimately, to answer your question, you need to think like an investor.
Consider you’ve got $200M (or whatever) to invest and grow. You’re the decision maker in a company, but lots of eyes and pressure on you to grow that $200M with as high of a return as possible, at the lowest risk.
Then think about all the risks involved and what a safer bet might be. Look at past tidal/wave projects and what their fate (and lessons learnt) were. Consider what alternatives could yield you a better return with lower risk exposure. As an investor, you should be technology agnostic… you only care about maximum returns for minimal risk.
So now as a tidal/wind farm company… how do you convince investors to back you?
I’ve helped new technology OEMs with bringing their technology to government energy funds to get their support. It’s not easy! Here you need to convince them that your $200M technology is a safer and better bet than the others.