But recent technological advancements have helped this dream move one step closer to becoming a reality.Ĭoncrete steps are also already being taken to harness the energy of the ocean’s other powerful processes Humans have dreamt of using the clean, predictable and enormous energy of the ocean for our own electricity needs since at least 1799, when a French engineer and inventor named Pierre-Simon Girard filed a patent for a machine which would use wave power to pump water for irrigation. It was the first demonstration of the commercial potential of ocean energy technology in Australia.” Stephanie Thornton, General Manager of the industry-led Ocean Energy Group, agrees. “It was a full-scale device deployed in the ocean and grid-connected.” Courtesy: Wave Swell.Īccording to Dr Jana Orszaghova, Senior Lecturer at University of Western Australia focusing on ocean renewable energy and Deputy Program Leader of Offshore Renewable Energy Systems at the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre, this trial was “a huge milestone” for the ocean energy industry in Australia. Six months later, the unit was decommissioned. It continued doing so until the trial concluded in August 2022. Six months after it was installed, the $12 million UniWave200 did indeed start generating electricity, which was delivered to the local Hydro Tasmania grid via a subsea cable.

Its technology was based on the concept of an oscillating water column which essentially mimics a naturally-formed blowhole: as waves enter the open chamber beneath the waterline, they force air upwards to the turbine at the top, which then generates power. But it wasn’t an artwork in fact, it was a power generator.ĭeveloped by Melbourne company Wave Swell Energy, the UniWave200 was being trialled to see if it was able to generate power from the waves that had been whipped up by the howling winds over the Southern Ocean. Roughly the size of a two-storey house and comprised of thick, angular concrete with steel flotation pontoons, it resembled a large brutalist sculpture.

On January 10, 2021, a strange structure appeared in the shallow waters off Grassy Harbour on the south-eastern coast of King Island in Bass Strait.

Waves power suite 5