新能源领域探索之:夏威夷

Once connected to the energy grid this spring, this massive buoy will send 40 kilowatts of electricity back to shore. It's enough energy to provide power to two dozen homes. While located near a marine base, the US Navy is actually providing the bulk of the project's funding.

"We're trying to evaluate this technology for navy applications. And the best way to do that is to be actively involved with the project. So we're trying to support this contractor, helping make the right decisions, make good technical decisions, so that his product will eventually be available for us and others as well."

"It is a fabulous sight for us from the standpoint of the reception support of Marine Corps Base Hawaii as well as the US Navy."

But for all the support, OPT has received a long Hawaii's picturesque shoreline, the ture test may lie 4,000 kilometers away, in the harsh winter environs of the Oregon Coast.

"You know, these are waves that can reach heights as high as 40 to 50 feet. Oregon has one of the best wave climates for wave energy conversion anywhere in the world. And that's way we are here."

Here is Oregon Iron Works. And Phil Pellegrino is getting a tour as workers fabricate the next generation of OPT buoys.

"35 feet in diameter and about 16 feet high."

The PB150 will be larger and more powerful than its counterpart in Hawaii. Once in the water, the buoy will generate up to 150 kilowatts of power. It works by using a float that rises and falls with each passing wave. That force is a drive rod up and down which causes it Power Take-off System to turn a Generator inside the buoy. The electricity produced is then sent to shore through a subsea cable. To be cost-effective, several buoys need be to clustered together at a site along the coast.

"We would like to see the Oregon coast develop hundreds of megawatts of wave farms. It has the potential to do exactly that."