In 2022, Eco Wave Energy announced plans to relocate its wave energy array from Gibraltar to the Port of Los Angeles. The company has now received final approval for what will be the first onshore wave energy project in the United States.
The idea behind this setup is to attach a number of floaters to shore infrastructure that will rise and fall with the movement of the waves. This drives a hydraulic piston to move fluid into an accumulator, which releases the accumulator and generates electricity through a generator.
The concept was demonstrated on a tank in 2012 and subsequently scaled up into Gibraltar’s first grid-connected pilot system. The system has been in operation for almost six years since 2016, with more than 49,632 hours of grid connection.
Other installations were installed over the years, but it was the Gibraltar installation that was scheduled for removal in early 2022. The floater mechanism was not part of the export package and will reportedly be recycled, while the conversion unit is being overhauled and updated to meet US electrical standards prior to shipment to the US.
Just before the end of 2022, Eco Wave Power (EWP) announced that its energy conversion unit has arrived at its 35-acre Altasea campus in the Port of Los Angeles. This nonprofit organization fosters scientific collaboration to find solutions to climate change and food problems. Energy supply and ocean exploration.
“Being able to move the station from Gibraltar to Los Angeles in just a few months shows the further strength of our technology. It is a renewable energy technology,” EWP founder and CEO Inna Braverman said in December 2022. “This is just the beginning in the United States.”
The company opened a U.S. subsidiary in April of the following year to serve as a hub to harness the potential energy resources of the country’s more than 95,000 miles of coastline. Work then began to approve the pilot operation of the project.
Following a three-month feasibility study completed in April of this year, EWP signed an agreement with Shell International Exploration and Production Ltd. to collaborate on the first US pilot. Now, the company reports that it has received permission to install eight floaters on the existing pier structure on the east side of Municipal Pier One at the Port of Los Angeles.
Final national permits were granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and two 20-foot shipping containers housing energy conversion units connected to the floaters will be installed on the pier deck.
Installation is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of next year. Although it is unclear at this time how long the pilot will run, EWP has already identified 77 additional locations along the U.S. coastline that could potentially employ the company’s wave energy technology.
Source: Eco Wave Power