Solar panels, wind turbines – both are means to harness energy but what about the ocean?
When you stand along the California coast, you hear what some might consider a means to create energy. Energy from waves.
Off the coast of Scripps Pier in La Jolla, one company says it was an important step to see how gathering wave energy could work.
“The vision at CalWave is to unlock the power of ocean waves to secure a clean energy future,” Marcus Lehmann, CEO of CalWave, said.
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The vision started at UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering where he did research in 2012 and 2013.
“That’s when the UC filed the first patent on the shallow water device and that’s when we started the conversation with Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego to deploy a demonstration there,” Lehmann said.
During its piloted phase from September 2021 to Jul 2022, for 10 months CalWave assessed data collected from its mechanism. As he described, wave energy is a stored form of wind energy. As the wave travels on the surface, it encounters the anchored device, setting it in motion to produce electricity.
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“Just like an electric car that goes down the hill, and up the hill and so on, so every time it goes down you break your electric car, it would generate some power that could charge a battery, in our case we bring the power back to shore similar to an offshore wind farm,” Lehmann said.
Lehmann told NBC7 funding for CalWave came from a variety of resources, including activate.org, US Wave Energy, U.S. Department Of Energy’s Water And Power Technology, as well as private investors.
Starting next year, the Energy Commission will analyze the feasibility, costs, and benefits of wave and tidal energy thanks to Senate Bill 605, authored by Sen. Steve Padilla, District 18.
“My bill, which the governor signed at the end of the first year of his term will require the energy commission to do all the consultation with key stakeholder groups to consult with the California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, Fish and Wildlife, all the appropriate question, and then to report back to the governor and to the legislature by the first of January 2025,” Padilla said.
Sen. Padilla says California has aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals and that this report is a step that needs to be done to examine all areas of wave and tidal energy as a clean resource.
“This is another sourcing that will be part of the overall portfolio of where we get our energy from.”
The bill would require the commission, in coordination and consultation with the California Coastal Commission, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Ocean Protection Council, and the State Lands Commission, to work with other state and local agencies and stakeholders to identify suitable sea space for offshore wave energy and tidal energy projects in state and federal waters. The bill would require the Energy Commission to submit a written report to the Governor and the Legislature on or before January 1, 2025, that includes a summary of findings from the evaluation and considerations that may inform legislative and executive actions, as specified.
As it stands, the Energy Commission is already required to take action to meet California’s clean energy objective.
“This will become a new element of that to expand what things they look at, what considerations they examine, setting up the consultations with all the appropriate agencies so that they can end up with some analysis and identified sites where they can harness this,” Padilla said.
Lehmann says CalWave is operating on a similar timeline. Since its piloted phase off San Diego’s coastline, the mechanism they’re operating is advancing.
”Now with all the learnings and data from the pilot, we’ve matured to the unit that’s the commercial system,” Lehmann said.
He says as they continue to upscale the system, the next phase will take place off Oregon’s coastline at PacWave. The facility is currently under construction and will go online in 2025. From there, the plan is to export power for two years.
“Ideal outcome is to show the rate savings for the ratepayer and there were similar studies for offshore wind,” Lehmann said.
According to Padilla, SB 605 will go into law on January 1.
