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Wave farms are a growing upcoming source of energy provision. It involves using a series of machines which extracts the forces (pull and push) of water to produce electricity or rather wave power.

Portugal the Pioneer of Wave Farms

Aguçadora Wave Park is the world’s first industrialised wave farm, and it is situated in Portugal close to Póvoa de Varzim. The farm has been operating since the 23 of September 2008. The plant does currently have 3 Pelamis P-750 machines which can produce a capacity of 2.25 MW. However, the wave farm is expected to be expanded in its second phase from 2.25 MW to 21 MW of wave power. This will be derived from using additional 25 Pelamis machines.

Wave Power in the United Kingdom

The 20th February 2007, the Scottish Executive announced its will to provide funding to marine power in Scotland. They are going to produce a wind farm which is expected to become one of the world’s largest wave farms, with a total capacity of 3 MW. This energy will be generated from 4 Pelamis machines.

There is another wave farm named as Wave Hub, which has been set to be established in the north coast of Cornwall, England. The project was accepted for funding in June 2007. There are already four operators interested in setting up wave power devices up to a capacity of 20 MW.

Wave Power In U.S

There are currently no large wave farms in the coasts of America. However, the President of Trade Association Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition says that there is a total wave power potential of “252 million megawatt hour a year” off the coast of the United States. There hasn’t been a steady step taken to develop wave farms but there are indeed lots of research and investment being provided by the federal for the field.

The largest national utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric Company did the 18th of December 2007 pronounce its will to buy power produced from waves. This was singed under some of California’s renewable energy restrictions. In the state of California, utility companies are required to produce 20 percent of their total electricity supply from renewable energy sources as per this year (2010). The law is likely to be enforced during the years to come to maybe 40 percent by 2020 and henceforth.

A total of $200 million in federal funds was provided under the Marine Renewable Energy Research & Development Act of 2007. The fund is meant to scrutinize the potential of wave energy technology for the period 2008 to 2012.

America’s Department of Energy (DOE) is also responsible for providing a $50 million of fiscal funds for research, development, creation and commercial application of so called ocean energy. For the year 2008, there were 14 institutes that received fiscal allocation. The appealing institutions were:

1. Oregon State University
2. University of Hawaii.

Some ocean energy projects initiate in America can be found at the coastline of California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York. Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Company of Seattle is the company which has applied for the development of these wave- at the Federal Energy Regulatory commission.

You might want to read: World’s Largest Wave Power Station Being Built In Sweden

Source: Wikipedia.org