On Tuesday, California wave energy technology startup CalWave announced that it has successfully completed California’s first-ever, long-term, fully-submerged wave energy pilot project. The milestone pilot of its CalWave x1 system off the San Diego coast, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, will be subjected to further testing for another six months to validate the performance and reliability of the CalWave system in open ocean conditions.
In addition to the Department of Energy, CalWave’s partners include early-stage science innovation VC Breakout Labs, Sandia National Laboratories, the National Science Foundation, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley.
“Wave power can provide stable power at night and winter times, and so far it is completely unused,” said CalWave founder and CEO Marcus Lehmann. “Next to high performance, the xWave’s ability to reduce excessive loads are two fundamental features of a wave energy device to be able to deliver cost competitive power.”
“CalWave’s long-duration deployment is a novel open water demonstration of a wave energy technology with active and passive load management features,” said Jennifer Garson, Acting Director of the Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO). “WPTO is pleased to recognize this accomplishment as a major milestone for unlocking the potential of wave energy from our oceans and providing access to clean energy for the growing blue economy in the U.S.”
CalWave has differentiated its technology through architecture that enables high-performance energy generation while being able to control structural loads during unusual and destructive offshore storm conditions. It has been designed with the needs of end-users in offshore inspection, aquaculture, ocean science and others in mind.
Following the success of this demonstration, CalWave will deploy a larger unit at PacWave, the first commercial-scale, utility grid-connected wave energy test site in the U.S., rated at 20 MW.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy and furnished by CalWave, wave power (also known as “marine energy“) can potentially provide up to 30 percent of the 2019-level energy consumption in the U.S. Total marine energy resource in all 50 U.S. states is 2,300 TWh/year, equivalent to around 57 percent of 2019 U.S. generation.
