To tap the energy present in the heart of those unconventional resources you sometimes need unconventional methods. That is exactly what a brilliant company in Finland is doing. I have come across only yesterday a story about one brilliant gentleman who is harnessing the energy of trucks that pass over road by installing heavy plates on the road and using their compressive force to generate energy. This is similar in many ways, but this aims at using plates on the coast bed to harness the energy of waves. This is really trying to harness the energy from the elements in the cleanest way possible.
WaveRoller is a company that wishes to plant oscillating fibre glass and steel plates on the sea bed. Waves rolling in push over the plates, which rebound after the wave passes and they are present there only to be knocked down by the next wave. The back-and-forth motion of the plates drives a piston and creates hydraulic pressure, which ultimately gets fed to a turbine to generate electricity. This amazing new technology makes sure that one will not have to post any floating obstacles on the coast.
This new technology means that boats will be able to carry on without an obstacles and it will not hurt the coast either. Unlike in the past, the new technology has no negative implications and is totally safe for use. WaveRoller installed a prototype off the coast of Peniche, Portugal, earlier this year and this summer will begin to collect data on how well the plates perform. If all goes well, the company hopes to start producing systems commercially and helping power providers build multi-megawatt power plants in five to seven years or so. Let us hope that they succeed for the sake of the planet.
