Growing demand for renewable energy sources

 In recent times the global energy market has been  characterized by a widening gap between surging demand and restricted supply. At the same time, carbon emissions from non-renewable energy sources are high-priority items on political agendas, prompting governments and businesses to invest more in finding new, renewable sources of energy.

According to a recent report published by the Bloomberg publication New Energy Finance, investments in renewable energy have doubled since the year 2000 and amounted to $145 billion in 2009. At the moment wind energy is by far the predominant source of renewable energy and its global market has been estimated at approximately 45 billion euros (GWEC 2009). Renewable energy (excluding large hydropower projects) supports approximately 4% of global power consumption.

Global ocean energy resources are vast, and ocean energy technology clearly represents the largest untapped business potential within the renewables sector. The map below indicates areas where wave energy potential is greatest. There is a strong correlation between surface and surge energy. The ideal conditions for WaveRoller are a depth of 10 - 25 meters, where the swell period is 5 - 20 seconds.

Commercial market for ocean energy taking off despite the limitations of current solutions

The map indicates areas where wave energy potential is greatest.

Market development for ocean energy equipment has to date been driven by pre-commercial pilots and markets for wave energy are  still fairly limited. However it is evident that in the next few years the market will surge when  successful technologies move from the pilot phase to commercialization.

WaveRoller marine testing site in Peniche, Portugal