It is interesting to note that Scotland, home of the Pelamis, seems to be going for tidal energy in a big way having an excellent tidal resource.

http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Salmond-hails-Pentland-Firth-Europe39...

I suspect that running the figures for tidal would produce a much more favorable result.

The target in Scotland is 3GW of installed wave and tidal capacity by 2020. That's about 50% - 60% of Scotland's electricity requirement.

Listen to Professor Ian Bryden (University of Edinburgh) talk about this at (6 minutes in)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffAcqzDi0mE

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBlrT9xNers&feature=related

Scotland is to marine and wind renewable energy what Saudi Arabia is (was?) to oil. Apparently.

Sounds like "we are losing a dollar on each one, but we'll make it up on volume" type of deal.

I wonder what justification did they present to get those taxpayers money? It doesn't make sense to subsidize an energy source if it's not shown that costs will drop to a competitive level in the long run. In this case wave should compete with the next better renewable energy source - wind, and from these numbers I don't see any advantage, not even potential one.

I would agree that wave power will at best be a niche application only suitable to those locations having typically large and steady waves. In the northern hemisphere these are mainly confined to the those coasts facing a long 'fetch' of ocean, such as Norway, Scotland, some parts of the western coasts of England and Ireland, and Portugal. In the US it would be mainly the New England coast and parts of the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest.

Regarding the economic issues, I think that it might be a little bit unfair to compare the cost of the very first commercial wave power installation with wind power, which can now be considered a mature technology. There is always a great deal of trouble-shooting, redesign, and reworking for a first commercial installation, and all those things cost money. Whether wave power will ever be competitive with wind power remains to be seen, but a legitimate comparison cannot be made using the first wave power installation.

I've studied wave power a bit, mostly from a technical interest standpoint. The nice thing about the Pelamis system is that it is very survivable, a major stumbling block for other types of wave power schemes. When a dangerous storm kicks up, all one has to do is to deactivate the hydraulic rams, and then the four steel 'sausages' no longer resist the relative motion between them and just loosely ride the waves. In other words, the Pelamis system doesn't fight the storm; it goes with it.

The other thing is that a base load factor of 0.30 for wave power strikes me as a bit low. I would think that at a give location the base load factor for wave power should be at least equal to that of wind power, as offshore waves tend to be more steady and less prone to short-term fluctuations, though I am by no means certain on this point.

Anyway, I am anxious to see if Pelamis can make a go of it over the long term, and without massive government subsidies.

I wouldn't look that black - or at least it is too early to draw any economical conclusion. This is an early rollout of a prototype waiting for many lessons to be learnt. The electricity plug lesson certainly won't be the last one.
It would be unfair to compare the price of a prototype or a small production with mature technologies: To build a new car prototype may cost millions, but the mass-produced model is much cheaper. Let's see how much prices come down with mass-production of these tubes - if this works then they can be applied in huge masses.
Looking at the project this way and comparing it with other, more mature renewables 13 ct/kwh appears pretty cheap: The price of this technology may come down, whereas the conventional electicity certainly will rise considerably and may even reach this level: The electicity price from coal plant is expected to double if carbon capture and storage (css) is applied (or even more if carbon certificate compensation is needed), and peak coal is possibly only one or two decades ago - the deadly cliff for all new coal plants.

Thx for elaborating on this Luis.
I have little to add other than "Houston, we have a small problem ...."

Just like a few other posters have said, it is too early to take cost estimates of a mature wave technology seriously. A lot of effort, such as design, testing, and developing systems to manufacture and maintain the technology doesn't scale down to small installations. That is the reason subsidies, or government R&D funding makes sense. It is a public investment in a high risk venture that might have large long term benefits. Any really new, but risky energy venture is going to be like this. You start with a handfull of small relatively high cost experimental facilities that have to run for years before enough experience accumulates before it is possible to make reasonable predictions about the cost effectiveness of mature technology.

I had thought that load factors for wave, at least for prime locations were supposed to be more like .6 to .7. Perhaps the site was not chosen to maximize this, as the primary benefit of the early systems is data and experience, any power generated is simple gravy. As mentioned above, waves can travel thousands of kilometers and days away from their sources, the variability and predictability should be better than wind. Also the variability of wave should have low correlation with wind and solar, so that reliability wise they complement each other.

Luís, 0.12cent/kw.h is highly subsidized, and does no reflect the real cost.. but it will no stay so low for a long time, maybe after the elections...

Portugal have a large potencial in tidal energy, and it will be cheaper as time passes, with iniciatives like this, i´m proud of our government;)

The real progress from marine renewables is going to come from low head tidal / wave over-topping devices. Something like WaveDragon
Combined with low head tidal lagoons as sea defence in certain areas. Would also provide lots of potential for pumped storage.
Build tidal current turbines and offshore wind turbines on the same structure, create some no take zones with artificial reefs nearby.
Farm seaweed/algae as fertilizer/bio fuel feedstock.
Reusing old wind turbine blades for tidal current might be a good idea as they would be more than big enough.

If an energy source needs indefinite feed-in tariffs that suggests (to use a boxing analogy) it is punching below its weight division. If wavepower contributed 1% of the kilowatt hours but cost 5% of total electricity charges that is problematic long term. Taxpayers or other electricity users are paying too much. The tariff could be justified as startup help but needs to be phased out when the technology is mature. The usual suspects will say wavepower increased x% much faster some other technologies therefore it is the winner.

I was wondering how steady the electricity from these devices would be. Does it come primarily from the tides twice a day? If so, it seems like it would be hard to generate enough electricity to pay back the cost? Does it vary with the wind, as you seemed to suggest. Them it would seem to amplify the variability of the wind generated electricity

If it is too variable, it seems like it is difficult to use much of this kind of power without having some sort of backup storage. If this is the case, back-up storage should be considered as part of the cost.

de Sousa writes,

"the financial return on investment (ROI) is close to 1:1. Where that leaves EROEI is not easy to envision, but it might not be that far off."

The financial ROI is poorly-considered. It's not just cost of project vs revenue raised from selling electricity; avoiding catastrophic climate change and reducing reliance on depleting fossil fuels the price of which will only go up over the next decades is of financial benefit, too. Installing renewable energy thus looks a lot like installing insulation, or tasking the police with dealing with drunk drivers, or putting in fire alarms and sprinklers - at first glance it loses you money, but taking a broader view it prevents greater expenses in the future.

But less us imagine that the financial return on investment is below 1:1. Let's imagine it makes no a single Euro over its entire lifetime. De Sousa has not provided anything to support comments about the energy return. Perhaps he assumes that money and energy are always proportional to each-other?

This assumption, wrong as it is, would not be a problem, except that he bases a conclusion on it,

"this [feed-in tariff] subsidy is masking the low EROEI of some of these new energy sources, that otherwise should be preventing ill fated projects from surviving in the market."

He should have stuck with his other conclusion,

"Correctly measuring EROEI and determining how it evolves along the development phase of new technologies will have a crucial role in the Energy Policy of the XXI century."

EROEIs cannot be assumed from financial ROIs. They must be measured. Financial ROIs are important, but they are not the only thing which matters.

For my part, I am sceptical of the prospects of wave power. The sea is just a harsh place to get work done. Seawater's corrosive, and the very power of the waves this thing is trying to take up, that very power can destroy facilities in storms. Oil rigs, for example, require very heavy maintenance. Other renewable energy sources like wind, geothermal, tidal, solar PV and solar thermal, these seem much easier technically to tap into.

But it's worth a try, and we have to measure what happens to determine EROEI. We can't just assume it matches financial ROI - especially if we don't even calculate financial ROI properly.

We know that the EROEI for corn ethanol in the USA is marginal if not an energy sink. I hear that EROEI for sugar cane ethanol in South American is about 8:1, but I am yet to be convinced that it is that high. Oil itself is estimated now to be only 8:1 so it is hard to believe that grown energy could even come close; maybe someone is jacking the numbers for political purposes.

When there are reports of a new source such as reported here, with a approximate 1:1 financial return, can the EROEI be much different. And most importantly, how can anyone conceive that we can survive at our current population numbers by substituting a 1:1 or even a 2:1 rated energy source to replace an 8:1 rated oil supply.

It sounds like this is more a distraction than a solution, and while we should applaud the efforts of those taking the risk and putting in personal effort, the quicker effort is focused elsewhere the better.

Has there been any research into the environmental effects of wave power, if it is scaled up? How will the reduction in wave energy affect coastlines and habitats, for example?

I would like to suggest to follow up this post with some pictures of the action, because the pictures in this post don't look to promising for wave power.

Thanks Luis.
It is about time that someone spoke up about some of these scams, which no-one in their right mind would put their own money in, and that is why they are invariably Government funded.
Instead of this corn-ethanol on the sea project, very high EROI projects like high altitude wind are withering on the vine for want of small amounts of seed capital.

I have a general question/comment about the methodology used to calculate the EROEI for this kind of device. Assume that we are talking about production quality units where the design remains unchanged.

EI(initial) = total of:
-- energy for materials (eg mining, smelting, etc)
-- energy for fabrication (welding, machining, etc)
-- energy for deployment (transport to site, etc)
-- energy for setup and testing
-- miscellaneous other initial energy costs

ER(X) = total of:
-- energy generated over average operational lifetime of X years
minus
-- energy used for operational control
-- energy used for inspections, etc
-- energy used for maintenance & repair
-- miscellaneous other operational energy costs

So, after X years, the EROEI is:

EROEI(X) = ER(X) / EI(initial)

Now, assume a rebuild energy cost

EI(rebuild) = total of:
-- energy for materials lost to rust & wear
-- energy for repairing damage (eg dents, etc)
-- energy for replacing subsystems (eg hydraulics, electrical, etc)
-- energy for re-deployment (eg towing to-from facility)
-- energy for setup and testing
-- miscellaneous other rebuild energy costs

So, after 2X years, the EROEI is:

EROEI(2X) = (ER(X)+ER(X)) / (EI(initial)+EI(rebuild))

and generally ...

EROEI(nX) = n*ER(X)/(EI(initial)+(n-1)*EI(rebuild))

I assume that the energy cost of rebuilding a unit is considerably less than the energy cost of initial construction. If that is indeed the case, then the EROEI will increase as a function of time deployed.

IOW, the longer the units are deployed (via rebuilding) the better the energy return.

Comments welcome, especially from people with a marine engineering background. For example, are navigation buoys serially rebuilt in this manner?

I'm troubled by the quality of the engineering science revealed in this project. A hydraulic ram is a well known hydraulic device, and they are not using a hydraulic ram. See wikipedia for a reasonably accurate description of a hydraulic ram. I do not see any engineering data. I do not see any discussion of engineering design issues that they identified, nor how they were decided. There is no mention of Naval Architecture, which is the engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction and repair of marine vehicles. There is no discussion of sea state. Is the current definition of sea state adequate to record the parameters that are important to the safe and productive operation of these devices? Have they asked this question? Have they thought of this question? Do they even know that a definition of sea state exists?

The energy in waves comes from solar energy via wind energy. There is necessarily less wave energy than wind energy. Will wave energy resource be depleted by full build-out of ocean wind?

In fairness to wave energy, the medium in which the waves exist has a much greater density that air. This results in much greater energy density (Joule/unit volume) than energy density for wind. But can this advantage be captured within a reasonable collection device?

Too much hand waving that shows no knowledge of engineering beyond that known in the time of Aristotle, Plato, or maybe the Iliad.

It was a dark and stormy night. Despite its immense size the crew of the supertanker was having trouble using their sea legs. The midnight to 4 am helmsman on duty mistakenly puts a heading of 54 degrees instead of the 45 degrees as ordered. The 9 degree difference sends the ship directly through the Agucadoura II wave farm causing damage to both the pelamis units and the ship.

Where and how did you calculate the EROEI? You stated...
Where that leaves EROEI is not easy to envision, but it might not be that far off.
And from there went to...
Even if Pelamis manages to deal with low EROEI

Which is a bit confusing. If you accidentally left your EROEI calcs out I'd love to see them, however if you are assuming EROEI is proportional to cost, especially for one-unit demonstration projects, I think you may want to calculate the project's EROEI just in case that assumption does not hold. Also I think that looking at emergy as opposed to energy if you already aren't would be a good idea since renewable power sources that produce electricity give us an energy source with a very high exergy and few externalities, unlike those of fossil fuels, which we have to deal with later via greater health care costs and more frequent natural disasters, among other impacts of course.

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I wonder whay the best wave power rigs dont get funding?
Pelamis can not easely be combined with wind mills.
Wave Dragon and Ocean Wave and Wind Energy www.owwe.net can be hybrid wave and wind farms, and energy cost will be even cheeper than wind mills alone.