Finavera Renewables, has cannily produced a video for Youtube about their AquaBuOY - so here it is.

You can see quickly how it all works and the voiceover is slightly camp - a bit like Hal from 2001. But joking apart, how far are we really away from the mass deployment of wavepower?

Certainly, some people are very optimistic, forecasting a fall in cost similar to the trajectory of wind power. Yet the reason wind power fell so fast was much less to do with economies of scale and much more to do with (much like the aircraft industry) a technological shift from wood to metal to carbon composites in the turbine blades, which meant they were strong enough to be built much, much, bigger, hugely reducing the installed cost per kilowatt. There are now commercially available 5 mw machines. 20 years ago, the largest was only strong enough to generate approx. 40 kw.

That's why I don't buy into the mass production story for wavepower. There is no similar shift/technological breakthrough in materials deployed around the corner. Sure, it will grow fast from a very low base. But in the years to come, I don't see it being anywhere near as cheap as windpower, in spite of some of its innate advantages - a more predictable load factor, modular scaleability and lower planning hurdles. At an estimated $6000 per installed kilowatt, it still costs too much.