wave-power - 20 times more expensive than wind

Oregon is first U.S. site for a wave-power farm.

A float on a buoy rises and falls with the waves, driving a plunger up and down, he explained. The plunger is connected to a hydraulic pump that converts the vertical movement into rotary motion, driving an electrical generator. Electricity produced is sent to shore over a submerged cable, he said.

The first buoy will measure 150 feet tall by 40 feet wide, weigh 200 tons and cost $4 million, Pellegrino said.

Nine more buoys are planned to deploy at a site in Reedsport, Ore., by 2012, at a total cost of $60 million, he said.

USA TODAY.

Reedsport OPT Wave Park

The estimated amount of electricity this project will deliver to the grid is approximately 4,140 MegaWatt-hours/year based on the wave resource at this location, or enough for up to 375 homes. Electricity generated by OPT’s clean, renewable PowerBuoy system will displace 2,110 tons of carbon dioxide annually1. The power created by the Reedsport project is expected to be delivered to the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC Power). The Reedsport preliminary permit application can accommodate up to 50 MW for potential future expansion at this site.

OCEAN POWER TECHNOLOGIES.

Let's summarize:
Maximum capacity: 1.5 megawatt
Total yearly generation: 4,140 MegaWatt-hours/year
Actual average power: 472 300 watts
Capacity factor: 31.5%
Cost: 60 million dollars
Capital cost per watt of capacity: $40
capital cost per watt of average power: $127

• Capacity factor is 30%. This means it is likely about as reliable as wind, and thus relies it can only displace fossil fuels when there are waves.
  
• Wind is usually around $6 per watt, Nuclear $5 per watt, and Natural Gas $0.75 per watt. These are capital costs which do not include operations cost (which is high for natural gas), therefore wave-power is 22 times more expensive than wind in terms of capital cost.
  
• Given the US has an average cost of electricity of 11.5 cents per kilowatt hour, the wave-power farm will generate $476,100 of electricity per year. At this rate it would take the wind-farm 126 years to pay for itself, however, this does not include maintenance, grid operations, or replacement units when they break.
  
• The ONLY way they can actually make money of these things is therefore through massive subsidies or a very high cost of electricity, like they do in Portugal (€0.23/kWh subsidy).
  

The world's first commercial wave farm opened in 2008 off the coast of Portugal, at the Aguçadoura Wave Park, Husing said. It ran into financial difficulties last year and was suspended indefinitely, according to a statement from Pelamis Wave Power of Scotland, part owner of the project.

A wave-power device from another company, Finavera Renewables of Canada, sank off Oregon's coast two years ago, Pellegrino said.

Other projects are under development in Spain, Scotland, Western Australia and off the coast of Cornwall, England, he said.

Capturing that power is a challenge. The size of waves can fluctuate widely.

"If they're too big they overwhelm the equipment and can damage it," Pellegrino said. "If they're too small, it's not going to be cost-effective."

USA TODAY.

The words "MASSIVE WASTE OF MONEY", come to mind. We should be spending money on significantly cheaper forms of energy, that can provide large amounts of cheap electricity with minimal environmental impact. If you want solve global warming, or just want us off fossil fuels, then developments in clean / cheap energy are required. These include further developments of solar, and investments in current nuclear, geothermal & hydro. These are energy sources that should be encouraged, rather than idealogical pipe-dreams like wave-"power".

Thanks.

[edit on 5/3/2010 by C0bzz]

Interesting. I wish wave power could be more economical but it's probably not going to prove viable in the long run. Another factor in cost is the effects of sea water which will corrode anything it in and require regular maintenance to stay operational.
We should push wind and solar, they seem to have the most going for them. We sure don't need any more Hanfords or Three mile islands.

reply to post by C0bzz


Uhm.

What you present in your thread is true - no denying that.

But have you ever considered that maybe wave power is comparatively more expensive than wind because it is a new technology?

When the US were the leaders in wind energy in the 70's, it wasn't competitive at all.
Now, after 30 years of R&D wind is coming to the grid at prices comparable to fossil fuels...

You do realize that these are the first industrial-sized wave energy platforms, and that by further development and mass-scale production the cost will come down like in any other industry?

Look at the progress made in Spain between the first and second generation of snake turbines ... They are basically reproducing the cost-efectiveness-evolution of wind turbines in about a quarter of the time....

So, what you write is true - TODAY.

But history suggests that we should not disregard the evolution of technologies - considering that you might want to add that the results we have today are pretty impressing regarding the fact that is the first generation of industrial sized wave generators in the US.

It's not all bad. Your posts proves that we have been underfunding very interesting technologies. These projects could have been done 20 years earlier and in that case the evolution of thhe technology would have negated all your criticisms by now. Or so I hope.-

So have all the protestor decided to leave these things alone? Last I knew there was some fringe eco terror groups who hated these things for interfering with fish or clams or seagulls or all of the above, I can't remember, and vowed to attack them.

Will the cost of constant guarding and replacement be figured in?

Same groups hate the wind turbines for the same reasons. Migratory pattern interference and what not.


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reply to post by thisguyrighthere


If there are indeed such people I pitty them.

Windows kill way more birds than turbines ever will.
So does plastic.

Wave generators do interfere with aquatic life, though. Although the fish don't seem to mind it much the fishermen surely do - as you can't fish with nets in the wave-generator fields.

But I don't really care for that since by the time we'll depend on these generators there won't be too many fish or fishermen left to care about.

BTW in Spain they did a pretty good job at coordinating local fishing industries with the generator fields. In fact the wave generators have helped reign in overfishing there, as they made an understanding of all participants necessary.

[edit on 6-3-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

This thread was mainly a reponse to some previous hype threads on the same subject. In any case, there is very little doubt that technology progresses over time. No doubt that many programs should be partially funded by the government, in the past, these have led to great success, such as the Interstate Highway System in the US, for example. However, in the case of wave-energy, a quick ATS search reveals that wave-energy was seen as a cheap alternative for fossil fuels. They are advertised, to be extremely cheap, to be able to supply electricity at only 15c/kwh yet real-world examples have shown there absolute sky high cost. At 15c/kwh it would take 100 years to merely pay back the capital investment even if there was no expenses (e.g. maintenance cost). To pay back in in 10 years would take a cost of electricity of $1.5 per kilowatt hour. So that fact is, this is no-where near cheap. It is decades away from being cheap. Point is, this will not provide any significant portion of our electricity, probably forever. People should try not to oppose technologies that actually work (e.g. hydroelectric dams) because wave-energy is NO alternative. Fact is, Nuclear, Geothermal & Hydro are what should be built TODAY on a large scale, not wave-energy. So, yes, wave-energy should be developed, but it should not at this moment be seen as an alternative to anything else. I disagree about wind / solar significantly displacing fossil fuels, but that's for another thread...

[edit on 7/3/2010 by C0bzz]