Basic Ways to Make Electricity from Wave Energy

• 1). Mount a floating raft to a steady object on the ocean floor. Allow a series of moored buoys to rise up and down with the waves. This movement "strokes" an electric generating device and the electricity created is shipped to shore in an underground cable. This system is called a float system or buoy device.
  
  Ocean Power Delivery uses a floating tube called "Pelamis." Long and hinged together, it is about the length of five railroad cars. It bobs up and down and bends its hinges, which pump hydraulic fluid to drive electric generators. (See Reference 2) Their website is listed under Resources.
  
  
• 2). Install columns of water to oscillate with the in-and-out action of the waves. The columns fill with water on the rise and discharge on the fall. Air inside the columns compresses and heats up, creating energy like a piston pushing air in and out of a hole in the column. The air drives a turbine which turns a generator. The wave energy is harnessed and sent to shore via an electrical cable. This system is called a wave power station.
  
  
• 3). Build a shore-mounted device to channel and concentrate waves and push them into an elevated holding tank. The water flow out of the tank is then used to make electricity. It is simple to use the regular hydro power devices at this point to make electricity. This is a "tapchan" type system, also called a "tapered" channel device. (See Reference 1)
  
  
• 4). Have waves pass underwater across the top of a "CETO" Wave Generator System. A piston moves from the underwater waves and pumps seawater to drive generators on land. Renewable Energy Holdings developed the units and deploy them on the sea bed near the coast. (See Reference 2)
  
  
• 5). Create your own wave energy devices from these additional resources, or use one or more of the concepts employed to harness free energy that never needs fuel and produces no waste.
  
  Wavegen operates a commercial wave power station on the Scottish Island of Islay called "Limpet" (See Resources).
  
  Aquamarine Power uses the action of the waves to move the system and pumps fluids on shore, driving a generator. (See Resources)