Ocean wave energy has long been recognized as a renewable energy source with immense potential. Estimates place wave’s theoretical energy production at aproximately 125% of the electrical energy consumed around the globe. So wave power is hardly a niche market. But where do you go to find them?

When people think of ocean waves, they think of big waves crashing into the shore or tossing about ships. They may not recognize that waves that seem relatively tame and gentle have enormous power, too. In building the technology to capture the power of ocean waves to channel into electricity, Seabased needed a tool to understand where waves are a viable source of power at utility scale: so we built one.

The data visualization above shows the power the ocean waves around the world. The most powerful waves are seen in bright red, nearer the poles; the least powerful are in deep blue – often in places protected from heavy winds. Between those two is a whole range of wave climates. The numbers indicate how many kilowatts (kW) of energy per meter wavefront are available in each region. But Seabased technology does not require such strong waves.

“Many if not most wave technology developers have focused on big waves, because those waves can undoubtedly create a lot of power,” explains Dr. Francisco Francisco, Seabased’s manager of Energy and Environment. “But most of the people in the world live in the mid and lower latitudes. That’s why Seabased designed our technology to best fit these regions.”

So the huge swaths of light blue, teal, green and pale yellow – where waves are likely to be moderate – is also where the bulk of the global population is.

Besides the fact more people live near smaller waves, there is another advantage to focusing on those waves: cost. “The more powerful the waves that the equipment has to endure, the stronger the equipment needs to be, which often drives the price up,” continues Francisco. “That cost is not always justified when you consider the number of days the wave park could provide increased power from these very large waves. We want the commercial success of wave energy to be a huge contributor to the transition to renewables. That can only happen if wave power is affordable, competitive with other renewables.”

More importantly, the research shows that a place where waves are smaller but steady for months and months of the year can produce as much or more electricity than a place where waves are very powerful during fewer days of the year. By tracking the resource, we see where the most power is actually produced over time. Regions with waves with a power as low as 8 kWh per meter wavefront, when using Seabased technology, may produce a predictable stream of electricity that is competitive in price and can replace other fuels on the grid.

A lot of factors go into how much power waves can create. This global map, created using Google Earth and the IOWAGA-Ifremer database, helps us identify locations where Seabased equipment could catch the most energy to work efficiently and competitively.

Wave energy could produce enough stable energy  to the grid to change the game.