₦airaland Forum

Eco Wave Power officially launches grid-connected demonstration model in Jaffa, plans two more for Los Angeles and Taiwan, commercial scale roll-out in Portugal

An Israeli company, Eco Wave Power, whose pioneering ocean wave energy technology has attracted interest from countries with which Israel currently has no diplomatic relations, including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, has formally opened its demonstration project at the Jaffa Port with its significant strategic partner, EDF Renewables Israel.

The technology, designed to use existing infrastructure such as breakwaters, piers, and jetties, is mainly onshore or near shore. The only parts in contact with the water are large floaters, which move with the waves, setting in motion pistons and motors that turn electric generators.

This, according to founder and CEO Inna Braverman, sets the company apart from the vast majority of wave energy projects, which have been built out at sea, at a high cost, and with stationary infrastructure exposed to the punishing might of the waves.

Cutting the ribbon were Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai, Ayalon Vaniche, CEO of EDF Renewables Israel, and Yaron Klein, CEO of Atarim, which manages facilities along the Tel Aviv-Jaffa coast.

Invitees included visitors from Vietnam, the Philippines, China and the US.

With 100 kilowatts of installed capacity, capable of powering 100 homes, this is Israel’s first wave energy project to be connected to the grid. It is intended to demonstrate that the technology (piloted in Gibraltar over several years) works and that the infrastructure doesn’t break down during storms, during which the floaters are raised above the water surface.

Additional 100-kilowatt demonstration projects are planned for ports in Los Angeles and Taiwan.

After the ceremony, Braverman told The Times of Israel that the technology becomes profitable “once it reaches megawatt scale.”

This will happen with what Eco Wave Power believes will be the world’s first commercial-scale wave power project. To be built in Porto, Portugal, the 20-megawatt project will power 20,000 households.

Braverman said she hoped the profitability of the Porto project would open the door to bank finance, the lack of which has been an obstacle to major deployment. Financing options ranged from strategic partnerships to grants and equity, but 80 percent of funding from a bank was needed for a significant commercial rollout.

Another obstacle was regulatory, Braverman said. “It’s a new technology,” she explained. “Many countries want our technology but don’t have the policy, the legislative framework, or the feed-in tariff for wave energy.”

Noting approaches from national and commercial companies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey, Braverman said it was interesting to see how the need for renewable energy technology “has no borders.”

Braverman said Eco Wave Power was 100% environmentally friendly because it was attached to existing structures and not embedded into the sea floor. It was modular, scaleable, the least intermittent renewable energy source, and had 832 times the wind’s kinetic energy.

She added that in Israel, the company had identified enough existing coastal infrastructure (excluding prime real estate areas) to generate 250 megawatts of energy.

Braverman was born in 1986 in a town near Chernobyl, Ukraine, two weeks before the nuclear reactor there exploded. Her mother, a nurse, was able to resuscitate her after she went into cardiac arrest.

This gave her a feeling of purpose in life, she has often said.

She immigrated to Israel as a child and studied Political Science and English Language and Literature at northern Israel’s Haifa University, where she was first exposed to renewable energy.

Without any technical background, she leaped into a predominantly male industry when she co-founded the company in 2011, aged 24, with a Canadian businessman, David Leb.

Since then, she has picked up multiple awards.

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Source:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-wave-energy-project-draws-interest-from-qatar-saudi-arabia-and-even-iran/

Wave energy, and on track to commercial scaling? Nigeria has a long coast, asides our interest in renewable solar energy, this could portend greatly as well should Nigeria show early interest.

A young fellow had done this with a remarkable result in Aba

It's involve turning the turbines by the water waves and generate electricity just like in a bicycle dynamo

A breakthrough to affordable renewable energy is reachable , but we've always believe there's a controlled divestment from the big corporations

And if that attract considerable attention today, then it's probably because global warming might seems to offer new opportunities to them, which we were sufficiently yet to come to terms, and thereby letting people invest in renewables

Or of the fear of the exhaistibilities or fossil energy or of the natural diminishing return/marginal utility of it thereof

Scalability of this project will help homes and families cope better , improve agriculture and industries and improve the governments revenue systems, especially for low income countries

criuze:
A young fellow had done this with a remarkable result in Aba

It's involve turning the turbines by the water waves and generate electricity just like in a bicycle dynamo

A breakthrough to affordable renewable energy is reachable , but we've always believe there's a controlled divestment from the big corporations

And if that attract considerable attention today, then it's probably because global warming might seems to offer new opportunities to them, which we were sufficiently yet to come to terms, and thereby letting people invest in renewables

Or of the fear of the exhaistibilities or fossil energy or of the natural diminishing return/marginal utility of it thereof

Scalability of this project will help homes and families cope better , improve agriculture and industries and improve the governments revenue systems, especially for low income countries

Are you being serious? Well, actually, wave energy isn't a new thing. It is in old physics related textbooks. However, the challenges it has/had include that great storms from the sea could destroy the machineries. And that sea salt could wear down and destroy the machineries, among others.

What this Eco Wave in Israel had done was solve those challenges, thus making wave energy become a reliable source of energy. There are still few challenges left, but they are optimistic that their developed wave energy solution can now be a reliable source of commercially viable power.

If those Aba technicians did work on something similar, it's a great thing indeed. Everyone just need to ensure that it can be reliable, would yield maximum cost-benefit (machinery getting destroyed by sea storm is loss), and can generate megawatts up to commercial quantities.

What really excites me is that Nigeria has more than 800km coastline, longer or same as portugal's. It may be a cool alternative for the ministry of power, or private investors even.

OneOnland:
Are you being serious? Well, actually, wave energy isn't a new thing. It is in old physics related textbooks. However, the challenges it has/had include that great storms from the sea could destroy the machineries. And that sea salt could wear down and destroy the machineries, among others.

What this Eco Wave in Israel had done was solve those challenges, thus making wave energy become a reliable source of energy. There are still few challenges left, but they are optimistic that their developed wave energy solution can now be a reliable source of commercially viable power.

If those Aba technicians did work on something similar, it's a great thing indeed. Everyone just need to ensure that it can be reliable, would yield maximum cost-benefit (machinery getting destroyed by sea storm is loss), and can generate megawatts up to commercial quantities.

What really excites me is that Nigeria has more than 800km coastline, longer or same as portugal's. It may be a cool alternative for the ministry of power, or private investors even.

"Nigeria will undoubtedly benefit from its vast potential if and when the Nigeria's system been completely completely exorcised from its current maladies, otherwise our 800km coastline will remains underutilized.

To enhance efficiency and competitiveness, it's possible that this sector should be fully deregulated and opened to international private investments.


While seawater poses a challenge, underwater fiber optic cables have withstood saltwater corrosion over time. Similar coating technologies could be adopted to address this issue.

Thanks , advancements have been made to suspend the equipments amid increasing waves.


Meanwhile , many of the renewable technologies we see today have their roots in centuries-old discoveries, including electric vehicles. It's intriguing to consider how we became so reliant on oil, despite the threats it poses to our existence."

criuze:
"Nigeria will undoubtedly benefit from its vast potential if and when the Nigeria's system been completely completely exorcised from its current maladies, otherwise our 800km coastline will remains underutilized.

To enhance efficiency and competitiveness, it's possible that this sector should be fully deregulated and opened to international private investments.


While seawater poses a challenge, underwater fiber optic cables have withstood saltwater corrosion over time. Similar coating technologies could be adopted to address this issue.

Thanks , advancements have been made to suspend the equipments amid increasing waves.


Meanwhile , many of the renewable technologies we see today have their roots in centuries-old discoveries, including electric vehicles. It's intriguing to consider how we became so reliant on oil, despite the threats it poses to our existence."

It is true that Nigeria is faced indeed with maladies, but nonetheless its structure and economic and political arrangements, thick-skinned private investors still make their inroads to it.

A typical scenario in Nigeria, for a private person is to political-lobby the government to open up the marines for them and clear the bottlenecks that may impede instalment of the infrastructure.

The current power generation is fuelled by natural gas, more than 60% I think. An ambitious investors that pulled funds from various sources, including e.g. even the government may be able to utilize this sort of renewable power generation mode, and contribute up to 11% to electricity. And do know even that electricity being currently generated is hardly enough, and less 49% of power the country needs is being generated, so undoubtedly, there's need for more, and this wave energy may just be it.


Yes, the 'experts' who mostly would have tested and made various project analyses, in this case, Eco Wave must have found the solution to mitigate the sea salt issue and the storm issues.


Bottom line, nonetheless the maladministration in Nigeria, I believe, motivated and ambitious private investors may still make the best out of it. And the power ministry? Ours is an extremely corrupt government, but if they have the reasons or are moved, they might as well embark on it.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, even Iran are showing interest in the Israeli technology, talk more the non-published countries. If the power ministry wants to, they definitely would know what to do.