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Published on December 12th, 2009 | by Susan Kraemer

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PG&E to Try Next Round of Wave Power Tests off Santa Barbara Coast

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December 12th, 2009 by  

Moving on from the problems encountered in the Northern California wave energy tests off Mendocino and Humboldt Counties; PG&E has just filed a new preliminary permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for another three-year study of a potential wave power site.

Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Santa Barbara County coast is the new host. Like every Federal Agency, the Air Force is now under Executive Order to cut transport carbon emissions 30% and to power buildings with renewable energy, possibly making this location more amenable to tests of a renewable energy source that has the potential to do that.

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The WaveConnect permits applied for are just the first step; allowing PG&E to put in the needed infrastructure to conduct tests. A grid extension to the ocean that brings an undersea cable 5 to 10 miles offshore to several WaveConnect “sockets” to plug the tested wave energy devices into, so that PG&E can monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the various wave energy devices they want to test.

Under the original permits PG&E obtained from FERC in 2008, PG&E had 3 years till 2011 to test both environmental and feasibility studies for potential wave power off the coast of California, funded by $1.2 million from the Department of Energy and $4.8 million approved by the CPUC to test the waters off Mendocino and Humboldt Counties.

Those initial tests ruled out Mendocino County.

Laurel Krause at her renewable energy blog local Mendocino Current nailed the problem: stakeholders in this region are dyed-in-the-wool political activists, living in environmentally-centric coastal communities who have reacted protectively, sounding alarms that PG&E and the Federal government’s wave energy plans may foul, diminish and destroy the Pacific Ocean and marine life.

So, by this June PG&E filed with FERC to give up on Mendocino and move the funds remaining to the Humboldt spot with the “required spaciousness and the industrial infrastructure as well as a welcoming, interested community.”

Connecting to the grid at Vandenberg Air Force Base will eliminate the need for any infrastructure development on Santa Barbara County land and beaches, reducing that kind of possible opposition.

While tests continue off Humboldt County, various technical problems with the devices themselves also reveal the need to devise more solutions in the mechanics of wave power. Wave energy is in its infancy, and many different and novel approaches are being tried.

So far only a globally miniscule 300 MW (about the size of one average coal or solar plant) is producing wave energy worldwide, so the field is wide open to new ideas. Among the interesting discoveries to come out of the studies is that wave energy is higher in Winter, according to Hal LaFlash, director of emerging clean technology policy in energy procurement at PG&E.(pdf)

There is no word yet on which devices will be selected for this next round of tests.

Of the four tested devices, two have dropped out. The Finavera was rejected by the CPUC as too expensive, and the Pelamis fell apart in Portugal, so possibly PG&E will retest the Oceanlinx from the Humboldt tests. But there are so many imaginative wave energy inventions out there.

The wave energy device that I think holds great promise; with $4.4 million tests now being funded by the EU, is the WaveRoller, that works on underwater swells. I hope to visit it this Spring when it undergoes its first full scale trials.

Related stories:

WaveRoller Uses Swinging Door For Underwater Wave Energy

Reliable Wave Power Ensures Terrorism Protection

Australia Gets Wave Power Inspired By Oil Rig

Underwater Kite Harnesses Ocean Energy

Image: Patrick Smith Photography

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About the Author

writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times.    Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.


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  • Lily

    Piccinini –

    You can’t get 200Kw of power from wave that carry on 20Kw of energy. Your estimates violate conservation of energy laws! You are wrong by at least a factor of 10 and that is assuming 100% conversion efficiency. Maybe that is one reason no one is paying attention to your ideas.

  • Lily

    Piccinini –

    You can’t get 200Kw of power from wave that carry on 20Kw of energy. Your estimates violate conservation of energy laws! You are wrong by at least a factor of 10 and that is assuming 100% conversion efficiency. Maybe that is one reason no one is paying attention to your ideas.

  • Piccinini Raoul

    Your discussion, is very interesting, but data on the possibility of producing electricity from wave power plant, they certainly should be updated in relation to new technologies.

    Currently the most productive is the “Triton”, designed in Italy for wave motion of 19.69 inches, (about 50 cm), with no limit in height of the waves. The most obvious peculiarity is the large amount of energy produced, there isn’t currently a system that produces more energy. I do not know how to behave in the U.S., but in Italy it is very difficult to present new technologies, where the individual elements producing 200 kW, from the waves of one meter. These are the minimum production data: for 1 kmq, of the sea surface or ocean, at least 1 GW or more, (instant, 24 GW for Day, GW 8.760 – year), production equal to 1 GW, of 1 nuclear reactor, operating at 100% throughout the year, which produces 8.7 TW, but without the drawbacks of nuclear power. If you consider this a interesting system, you can contact me for more information, or to see the systems at sea in 2010.

    Best regards, G. Piccinini Raoul.

    E-MAIL: luoar@libero.it

  • Piccinini Raoul

    Your discussion, is very interesting, but data on the possibility of producing electricity from wave power plant, they certainly should be updated in relation to new technologies.

    Currently the most productive is the “Triton”, designed in Italy for wave motion of 19.69 inches, (about 50 cm), with no limit in height of the waves. The most obvious peculiarity is the large amount of energy produced, there isn’t currently a system that produces more energy. I do not know how to behave in the U.S., but in Italy it is very difficult to present new technologies, where the individual elements producing 200 kW, from the waves of one meter. These are the minimum production data: for 1 kmq, of the sea surface or ocean, at least 1 GW or more, (instant, 24 GW for Day, GW 8.760 – year), production equal to 1 GW, of 1 nuclear reactor, operating at 100% throughout the year, which produces 8.7 TW, but without the drawbacks of nuclear power. If you consider this a interesting system, you can contact me for more information, or to see the systems at sea in 2010.

    Best regards, G. Piccinini Raoul.

    E-MAIL: luoar@libero.it

  • Jon

    We’ll be more impressed when you learn how to develop technology that can actually survive the environment.

  • Jon

    We’ll be more impressed when you learn how to develop technology that can actually survive the environment.

  • George

    We are hoping that our radically new ‘GyroWaveGen(TM)’ technology will prove to be a solution to the numerous problems encountered, to date, by other approaches that try to harness the enormous power of ocean waves. Stay tuned to learn more about this promising new technology.

  • George

    We are hoping that our radically new ‘GyroWaveGen(TM)’ technology will prove to be a solution to the numerous problems encountered, to date, by other approaches that try to harness the enormous power of ocean waves. Stay tuned to learn more about this promising new technology.

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