Wave energy can produce much more energy than wind power, with much less space, why aren’t we using it more?
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00:00 According to the United Nations, 60% of the global greenhouse gas emissions are derived
00:07 directly from the way that we currently produce our electricity.
00:10 Wave energy can really be a game changer in that regard.
00:13 Hello, I'm Ina Braverman, founder and CEO of EcoWavePower.
00:20 The need for wave energy is unreliable because two-thirds of the world's population are currently
00:24 living on the coastline.
00:25 We can give clean electricity to people right in proximity to their homes instead of driving
00:31 electricity from some city or country center to the locations on the coastline.
00:37 We basically attach floaters to existent man-made structures such as piers, breakwaters, jetties,
00:43 and other types of marine structures.
00:45 The floaters are going up and down with the movement of the waves.
00:48 They're pushing hydraulic cylinders, which are transmitted by the gradable fluid, into
00:53 land-located accumulators.
00:54 A pressure is being built, which is used to turn the hydromotor, turn in the generator,
01:00 and via the generator, we send the clean electricity into the grid.
01:06 The density of water is actually 832 times greater than the density of air, meaning wave
01:13 energy can produce much larger electricity amounts with much smaller spaces, smaller
01:18 devices, which is a big advantage.
01:21 99% of the developers in the wave energy industry have decided to pursue offshore technologies,
01:29 and this created five problems which were common to all developers.
01:33 So the first one was the price of their systems, because when you're putting a power station
01:38 in the middle of the ocean, you need ships and divers and underwater mooring and cables.
01:44 So the installation, the operation, the maintenance becomes sky-high in terms of the cost.
01:49 Environmentalists, which were supposed to be the greatest proponents and supporters
01:54 of offshore wave energy, were actually objecting, because it created a new presence on the seabed,
02:00 which disturbed the marine environment and changed the ecological balance, since the
02:03 only thing in the water are the floaters, which belong in the water, and all the expensive
02:09 equipment, the generators, the conversion mechanism, and so on, is located on land,
02:14 just like a regular power station.
02:16 So that enables us a cost-efficient and reliable design.
02:20 Another problem was the survivability and reliability of those systems.
02:26 So basically, when you're that far into the offshore, you're exposed to wave heights of
02:30 20 meters, or sometimes even higher, and unfortunately, no man-made stationary equipment can avoid
02:36 waves of 20 meters and up.
02:39 Insurance companies saw that it's so expensive and breaking down, they were really reluctant
02:43 to insure offshore wave energy technologies.
02:46 Because we're connected to breakwaters, we have a patented storm protection mechanism,
02:50 that when the waves are too high for the system to handle, the floaters actually automatically
02:54 go up above the water level, and only when the storm passes, the floaters go back into
02:59 the water and commence operation.
03:01 Because we're cost-efficient and reliable, we also have full insurance from global reputable
03:06 insurance companies.
03:07 And then, on top of all of these problems, there became a big question mark on whether
03:12 wave energy can even safely connect to the electrical grid.
03:15 Because not many companies, if at all, have connected back then.
03:18 We have been connected to the grid in Gibraltar for six years.
03:21 Now, we've just connected our second power station to the grid in Israel, which became
03:26 the first wave energy power station in the history of Israel to ever connect to the national
03:31 electrical grid.
03:32 We're very, very excited about it.
03:34 [MUSIC]