Waverollers are a way of harnessing the power of the oceans. The power they produce is renewable and green and their grids are easily scaleable. Their simplicity and relatively cheap costs look as though these could be one of the best ways to harness renewable energy souces in the future.

In surface waves or swell, water particles roll in a circular otion. As the waves come in towards the shore, the energy is squeezed by reducing depth. Below the swell at the surface, the circular motion ends up being more elliptical than circular and at the bottom of the sea, the water particles rock backwards and forwards up to the breaker line. This phenomenon is known as ‘bottom waves’. These bottom waves tend to be a lot more continuous and predictable than the wind meaning harnessing these waves would be fantastic for predictable renewable energy production.

And this is where the WaveRoller comes in. The Wave Roller is a plate which gets attached to the sea bottom. The movement of the bottom waves move the plate. The kinetic energy produced is collected by a piston punp which is then converted into electricity by a closed hydraulic system.

As more plates are added and connected, more electricity can be produced. This modular format means that the WaveRoller plant can be moved into operation slowly and there won’t be too many issues with scalability.

WaveRollers have already been tested in several locations around the world and initial findings indicate that it is one of the most economic technologies with one of the best performances. The WaveRoller is also useful because the power levels generated throughout the year vary considerably less than with surface technologies.

The WaveRoller plates are usually situated about 7-15 metres under the surface which causes no interference to passing ships. They do not generate any surface noise and are designed using environmentally friendly materials which contain no hazardous technologies.

The WaveRoller concept looks like one of the better technologies around for capturing renewable energy sources. With it’s lack of noise, it’s hidden status under the sea and relatively cheap outlay, it looks set to have a bright future.

Click here to read more about the WaveRoller.

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