Pacific Gas & Electric with Finavera Renewables for 2 megawatts of power, provided by wave-powered turbines. Here’s a snippet on how the tech works:
Finavera makes a device called the Aquabuoy, a buoy connected to a long underwater piston. As the buoy bobs up and down on the waves, it pushes the piston, which pressurizes a chamber filled with seawater. The pressure cranks a turbine and electricity is made.
It sounds like they have some obstacles yet to hurdle (the force behind waves and tides are pretty massive, it’s been hard design equipment to stand up to the stresses) but if successful it looks like technology that could provide a good amount of power at a lower environmental impact than fossil fuels.
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