Small Islands May Introduce the World to Ocean Energy

Small islands are experiencing Climate Change in real time. While rising seas and temperatures threaten only parts of many larger countries, they threaten the whole of a small island—its population, its economy, in some cases even its very existence. For many small islands—including many Small Island Developing States (SIDS)—ocean energy may be their best option for switching to renewable energy. A lot of small islands don’t have enough landmass to support large wind or solar installations, but they are surrounded by ocean that can provide blue power all day, all year round.

 At COP26, many wealthier nations pledged to help less wealthy nations with their energy transition. An alliance was forged between International Renewable Energy Association and the Alliance of Small Island States to accelerate that transition. The traditional approaches of deploying mature technologies such as solar and wind, however, won’t work the same on many small islands as they do in places with more landmass. Besides the scarcity of land, many islands are protective of tourists’ ocean views—which have great economic value—and could be marred by offshore installations. These are challenges that some wave and tidal technologies can overcome.

Technologies that are mostly below the surface don’t mar ocean views and may require very little land. For example, Seabased, which provides blue power from wave energy, requires only enough land for the size of a small hut. Plus ocean power is formidable. Waves are 800 times denser than wind, so they pack hundreds of times the power. And waves work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so they’re easy to integrate on the grid.

Small islands may play a key role in the green transition

For some places, wading into the less tested waters of ocean energy may seem risky; for small islands, though, it’s an approach that means safety. One thing all islands have in abundance is ocean. Many of these islands have excellent wave energy resources and many also have tidal and ocean thermal resources. SIDS including Barbados, St. Lucia, Tonga, Trinidad, and Capo Verde, for example, have the kind of wave climate that could make wave energy a substantial contributor to the baseload. Though other factors must be explored to know whether they are good candidates for wave energy, if it turns out that wave energy is an option these islands would be turning to a resource that will never be depleted and is, in many places, highly stable. That means safety for their lives and economies for decades to come.

The SIDS are recognizing that their future is in their hands. The island of Barbados, for example, has recently invested $60 million in renewable energy projects and has committed another $90 million for the next several years.

Bermuda, another small island, may go down in history as a leader who brought the third vertical in renewables—ocean energy—to the rest of the world. Bermuda just announced that it is moving forward on what is likely to be the world’s first wave energy park. Bermuda’s Minister of Home Affairs Hon. Walter Roban, MP, JP said “We have the opportunity to show that we are serious about this transition…. We are making a sincere effort, as a small island jurisdiction, to adapt.”

Every island Has a HOME-hybrid optimal mix of energy

Renewable energy isn’t one size fits all, and it doesn’t need to be. Every place in the world has a unique mix of natural resources—sun, wind, wave, tide, ocean thermal power—that could provide various amounts of clean energy. We call this HOME, Hybrid Optimal Mix of Energy. All available sources can be used together, just as nature does. The point is to have the technologies in place to convert that power of nature into electricity for people, without further harming the Earth. Wind and solar energy have transformed the world’s idea of power, but after decades of development, they only bring about 10% of the power on the world’s grids. They can produce a lot of power when they are producing, but they also stop, leaving grids scrambling for expensive batteries or fossil fuels.

The ocean, however, covers 70% of the surface of the earth and waves never stop. Together with wind and sun, they can produce a substantial baseload.

None of the small islands or SIDS can, alone, change the trajectory of Climate Change. They alone can’t stop the seas from rising or prevent the catastrophic weather changes wrought by changing global temperatures. By embracing ocean energy, however, they can help the rest of the world see how potent, reliable, and essential electricity from the power of the seas is. Hopefully, that will make it clear it’s time to back ocean energy around the world.

Climate Change Requires we change overnight; COVID showed us we can

Anyone who says the world can’t transform overnight to fight Climate Change hasn’t been paying attention. For the last 18 months, during the COVID-19 lockdown, the world changed overnight, because it had to. Companies that had been ducking necessary investments because of cost and operational disruption—investments in things like Digital Transformation and providing remote work--suddenly found their objections obliterated by COVID. Workers learned that not only could they do their jobs at home, but now many employees around the world say they don’t want to go back to the office full time. It was a sea change, and nature was in charge. The comparison to the COP26 dialogue about the Green Transition is clear: today, the fossil industry’s narrative is that a fast shift to renewables is impossible (never mind that they’ve been saying that for 50 years). But as history has proven again and again, nothing converts the impossible to the possible as efficiently as having no other choice.

 Do As Nature Does: Diversify

The argument goes that wind and solar probably can’t get us to 100% CO2-free electrical power on their own. That’s true. The sun goes down; the wind stops; and battery technology can’t fill in all the gaps. However, wind and solar don’t have to do it on their own. The ocean is an abundant source of power, covering 70% of Earth’s surface. There are waves, tides, ocean thermal conversion power, all of which can be enlisted to effect the transition.

Humans often look for single, silver bullet solutions to complex problems: monoculture farming is an example. It’s designed to simplify agriculture and increase profits, but it’s hard on the soil and creates fragility—if a disease specific to that crop strikes, a food crisis can ensue. Nature, though, engenders resiliency through diversity, ecosystems, and networks. Interdependence and balance enabled Earth to recover from, and survive, global catastrophes. We can adopt this model, creating a harmonious blend of several natural resources to increase our resilience and get us past the roadblocks hindering the Green Transition.

Wave energy is stable and predictable. The amount of power that grid operators can expect to glean from a wave park can be predicted from 5-to-14 days ahead of the time it is needed. In many densely populated places, moderate waves can provide a baseload at a price lower than the community currently pays. In most of these places, wave power parks can be paired with sun and/or wind. This provides an even larger renewable energy baseload and, in balancing the contribution of each resource, increases the value of both technologies to grid operators and to the market.  

In other wave climates, a tidal energy facility, or ocean thermal energy conversion might serve more effectively. It just depends on nature’s resources in that part of the world. The focus isn’t on one company or one technology—it’s on finally learning from nature and working with diverse resources to create power without destroying the species you’re creating that power for.

 Ocean Energy Tipping Point

After decades of development, several ocean energy companies are very close to commercialization. With support—in policies, subsidies, and investment—they could cross the last mile where research and development becomes commercial deployment of ocean energy. This is often the place where support is needed most. With investment and incentives, ocean energy companies such as Seabased could be producing clean electrical power in a year or two, exponentially hastening the Green Transition. Wave energy alone could theoretically produce more than 100% of the world’s current electrical consumption.

At present, we still have time to make this change without the fearsome repercussions that scientists warn are coming. We don’t know how much time. As COVID showed us, when Nature decides to change things, things change. Hopefully this time we’ll change first.

HOME: Let Nature Design Your Renewable Strategy

This piece was originally published in Renewables Now.

by Laurent Albert, CEO

It’s time to redesign our energy strategy. And the very same nature that created an impressive energy palette with sun, wind, water, and more can show us how to do it.

Today, only 9% of the energy that powers grids worldwide comes from variable renewable energy (VRE) sources like sun and wind. Because of their intermittent nature, VREs are still considered a costly add-on to the “normal” grid. Even with the existential crisis of climate change, renewable technology investment is often treated as a luxury and decisions are driven by short-term thinking: how many megawatts can I get for my dollar with this technology versus that one?

It’s time to take a longer view. Renewables create a challenge because they’re variable; the sun sets, the wind stops. But sun and wind are not the only resources. Every point on the globe has multiple natural resources with unique synergies, an interplay between natural elements that balance each other and shape a particular climate, year in and year out. Rather than balancing one renewable resource with fossil fuels, we need to take our cues from nature and build an infrastructure designed around several resources and technologies that can balance one another. At Seabased, a European wave energy company, we call this the Hybrid Optimal Energy Mix: HOME.

The exact recipe for HOME in any given place is based on data--carefully tracking, minute by minute, the amount of potential power generated by various resources over time. Grid operators must provide a baseload of power—enough to meet the demand under normal circumstances. Historically, grid stability becomes a critical issue as soon as a certain percentage of the energy supply (15-20%) originates from intermittent sources. This explains why about 70% of our energy still comes from fossil fuels. So, the Holy Grail of a sustainable renewable energy strategy is to achieve a stable baseload by mitigating this intermittency through a robust, optimal combination of technologies and energy sources. When you track each resource meticulously, you can see at the end of a year how much of that baseload you can expect to derive from each renewable resource – and from the different resources combined.

Renewables in concert

Think of it as a symphony. Each instrument on its own delivers beautiful music, though with limitations. Flutes don’t hit the low notes. Drums don’t offer a melody. But when they work in concert--the strings, the brass, the woodwinds, the percussion, perhaps a piano--each doing what it does best, the difference is breathtaking. This is synergy: creating a whole that is more than the sum of the parts. This is what we can achieve by balancing multiple renewables.

For example, today we witness expensive windmills that are only running at a fraction of their capacity due to the intermittency and the corresponding grid limitations. But the right combination of technologies could increase the combined level of stable baseload, enabling each technology to produce at a higher level, mutually enhancing the value of each: the optimal combination of technologies is a tide that lifts all boats.

As head of a wave energy company, I am passionate about this topic. I find it a fascinating and exciting problem to learn to work with the Earth’s energy to create the best scenario based on nature, rather than extract energy in a way that harms Earth, and, ultimately, we who live on it. The tendency to embrace renewables based on their current price point has led to relatively anemic investments in ocean energy, despite the fact that the research shows wave energy could produce enough electricity for all the world’s demand. Ocean waves are more predictable than wind, more constant than sun—being a 24-hour phenomenon. And water’s density—800 times that of wind—makes waves incredibly powerful. Seabased is moving toward certification and commercialization. But, like many in the sector, we struggle against a pervasive notion that there are “enough” renewable technologies out there. We beg to differ.

If countries hope to reach their renewable goals, wean themselves off fossil fuels, and reduce their carbon output, they will need to be able to lean on all their resources. The technology will always evolve; the resources are relatively constant. The enlightened approach would be to make investments in technology that capitalize on those resources.

Bermuda at HOME: A case study

We have been working with the island of Bermuda, which, like most other islands, is entirely dependent on imported fossil fuels. Per capita, residents of Bermuda pay about three times what residents of their neighbor, the United States, pay for electricity.

Bermuda is 21 miles long and two miles wide, at its widest point. No one on Bermuda is ever more than five minutes away from the ocean, which is probably one of the reasons why, during non-pandemic times, the island attracts nearly 700,000 visitors per year. Bermuda has ample sunshine, wind, and waves, but the island also has constraints on how much it can capitalize on these resources. There is not enough available land for large wind or solar farms. So the country determined they would only be likely to derive a small amount of power from solar. And, any energy source offshore must be sufficiently invisible that it does not detract from ocean vistas.

Given these parameters, and using minute-to-minute sun, wind, and wave data in Bermuda, collected over a full year, engineers from Seabased have calculated Bermudians’ HOME. By plotting the power output of each resource on a graph, and cross-referencing it against another graph that plots variability of power produced by wind and wave, Seabased’s engineers concluded that Bermuda’s HOME would be found by supplementing the 6% of solar power with 28% wind energy and 66% wave energy. As exciting as this favorable data is for wave, we’re not quite ready for it yet – though Seabased is on track for providing competitive utility scale solutions like this in the near future.

The point is that looking at HOME tells us which mix of renewable technologies would benefit us most if they were available, and hence which are worthy of investment today, because the win – both commercial and environmental – will be enormous when we roll them out.

Making renewable decisions

The calculations for Bermuda were based on that island’s distinct geography, land mass, and access to a powerful wave climate, etc. Other climates will have a different HOME.

Ireland, for example, has wood, water, wind, wave and some wastes as key renewable energy sources. Its wave climate is dynamic, with waves up to three meters average on the West Coast and from one to two meters in the Irish Sea. In addition, there are only about 1,400 hours of sunlight per year—averaging less than four hours a day. Some inland places average fewer than two windy days a year, while northern coastal locations may have more than 50.

After plotting the resource’s potential power output, communities must explore and consider the possible constraints of land and/or water use. Finally, they will be able to calculate which renewable hybrid mix will produce the most stable power to the respective community; they will know their HOME. Donegal will likely have a different HOME than Galway Bay or Cork. However, the natural energy resources for each of these locations are consistent over time. 

Our 21st-century data collection and analysis tools give us a powerful new window into how the Earth’s resources work, separately and in tandem. With these tools, we can make precise decisions, with small margins, that can drive in significant value and benefits to our society. Over time, our technology and the way we use power will change. What will remain relatively constant—even with climate change—is the resources that make up the environment in our communities. We must design our renewable architecture based on an optimal mix of the resources themselves. 

Building the renewable energy world for 2050 starts at HOME.