Pilot project at Port of LA generates clean energy using the ocean's waves

You can't generate solar power at night. And wind power is limited on days without a breeze. But what if you could create energy with ocean waves, which are always in motion?

That’s what Eco Wave Power wants to demonstrate. On Tuesday, it launched a two-year pilot project at the Port of Los Angeles, becoming the United States’ first on-shore wave energy program.

How it works

It’s a simple model: Seven blue floats that look like little boats are attached to the side of a dock. They bob with the waves, pushing a hydraulic cylinder that sends fluid through pipes into bright red tanks housed in a converted shipping container. Pressure builds in the tanks, turns a motor and powers a generator. Right now, it’s enough energy to power 100 households, said Inna Braverman, co-founder and chief executive of Eco Wave Power.

The control hub for the project is inside a shipping container.

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Elly Yu

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LAist

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Inside the container are the tanks, gauges and other equipment that produce the electricity.

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Elly Yu

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LAist

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The hope is to install these floats along 8 miles of breakwater off San Pedro — that would produce enough energy for up to 60,000 households, she said. The company, which partnered with the nonprofit AltaSea, has a two-year agreement with the Port of Los Angeles to run the pilot.

“The goal of this project is to be a demonstration … to show that it doesn’t harm the marine environment, [that] we’re not connected to the seabed, to show how to create the regulatory framework for it,” Braverman said Tuesday at a dockside ribbon cutting for the project.

Inna Braverman is the co-founder and chief executive of Eco Wave Power.

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Elly Yu

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LAist

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She said wave energy, which is still an emerging technology, has been done in the middle of the ocean, but creating on-shore stations is more cost effective. Building the pilot project cost about $1 million, she said — half of it funded by Shell.

This type of new technology will help the port get to zero emissions over the next decade, said Michael Galvin, director of waterfront and commercial real estate at the Port of Los Angeles.

“ We have to scale up the energy grid capacity that we have here in the port,” he said.