Ocean Energy Industries

The ocean holds a tremendous amount of untapped energy. Ocean energy comes in a variety of forms such as marine currents, tidal currents, geothermal vents, and waves. Wave energy is generally considered to be the most concentrated and least variable form of renewable energy. Waves are predictable days and even months in advance making it easy to match supply and demand.  Wave energy is an emerging segment of the renewable energy market.

Ocean Energy Industries, Inc. (OEI) is a manufacturer of WaveSurfer™, a wave energy converter (WEC) that generates electricity by harnessing renewable energy of ocean waves in an economically viable and environmentally friendly manner.

World energy production and consumption have recently been growing at around 2% per annum and most projections see this continuing in the period to 2030. For example International Energy Agency (2004) projects that global primary energy demand will increase by two-thirds in the three decades to 2030, reaching 16.5 billion tons of oil equivalent. This represents a growth rate of 1.7% per annum in the period 2000-2030. 

In developing countries such as China and India, the demand has been rising at a 10 percent growth rate or more.

Climate change, environmental damage and increasing energy demand, causing the depletion of fossil fuels and thus the rise in costs, necessitate a change in energy policy.

Wave energy provides 15-20 times more available energy per square meter than either wind or solar. It is the high power density of wave energy that suggests it has the capacity to become the lowest cost renewable energy source. As water is approximately 800 times denser than air, the energy density of waves vastly exceeds that of wind, dramatically increasing the amount of energy available for harvesting. Wave energy is a genuinely renewable, zero-emission energy source.

There is approximately 8,000 – 80,000 TWH/yr or 1 – 10 TW of wave energy in the entire ocean, and on average, each wave crest can generate 10 – 50 kW per meter. The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately 2 Terawatts (2 million megawatts), about double current world electricity production, could be produced from the ocean wave power.

Ocean Energy Industries, Inc. is poised to address the growing demand for energy as well as the environmental concerns related to traditional energy sources by developing, manufacturing and installing proprietary WaveSurfer™ systems that generate electricity by harnessing the renewable energy of ocean waves.

Key Advantages of WaveSurfer™

- WaveSurfer™ power converting parts are completely submerged in water at the depths of between 8 and 25 meters. Each unit is moored to the sea floor, resulting in the highest level of storm survivability.
- WaveSurfer™ is designed to operate in harmony with waves rather than attempting to resist them. Therefore, there is no need in massive steel and concrete structures to be built.
- WaveSurfer™ farms will operate in water deeper than 15 meters in areas where there are no breaking waves. Therefore, will have no impact on popular surfing sites as breaking waves equate to areas of energy loss.
- WaveSurfer™ operates across a variety of wave heights making it a base load energy option.
- WaveSurfer™ attracts marine life.
- WaveSurfer™ has high capacity factor.
- WaveSurfer™ is a highly scalable modular system that uses standard parts.
- Typically locations with wave energy above 10kW/m may be suitable for WaveSurfer™ operation.
- Lowest construction cost per kW capacity and lowest energy production cost per kWh in the industry.
- High return on investment.
- Transportability. Due to its unique design (patent pending) each unit can be cost-effectively transported anywhere in the world and easily assembled at the installation site.
- WaveSurfer™ farm capacity can be increased incrementally to match with gradual load growth.
- Construction lead time is significantly shorter than those of the conventional plants, thus reducing the financial and regulatory risks.
- Numerous potential sites for WaveSurfer™ installations are located near major population centers worldwide.