Energy Buoy News

When one thinks of offshore renewable energy, one usually thinks of offshore wind. For the first time progress is being made in the U.S. to develop offshore wind resources. The first steel foundation jacket has been placed in the ocean floor to support the Deepwater Wind project off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. (See www.dwwind.com/press/#/1). But recently, progress is also being made in the development of tidal and wave energy resources closer to shore, which are known as marine hydrokinetic or MHK resources.

The Navy hopes to expand its testing for ocean wave energy power generation in Hawaii, having been testing an energy buoy in about 100 feet of water off Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay for about 10 years. The Navy now hopes to put two more buoys in water more than 200 feet deep, and the greater depth will allow it to test larger devices closer to the size it needed to generate energy for customers. Bob Frederickson of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command said the new buoys are the next step toward commercializing wave energy.