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Who are the leading companies and organizations investing in wave energy?

Cleave Sarfass

Well, when it comes to leading companies and organizations investing in wave energy, there are some big players out there. Let's start with the companies. In no particular order, we've got ScottishPower Renewables, which is a subsidiary of Iberdrola and has been working on a wave energy project off the coast of Scotland. There's also Ocean Power Technologies, or OPT, which has been developing its PowerBuoy technology for over two decades. They have a few projects going on, including one off the coast of Oregon in the US.

Another company to keep an eye on is CorPower Ocean, which is based in Sweden. They've developed a buoy system that they say can generate up to five times more energy than other wave energy solutions. And then there's Wave Swell Energy, an Australian company that's been working on a project off the coast of King Island, Tasmania. They've been testing their oscillating water column technology, which they say is more efficient than traditional wave energy devices.

But it's not just private companies that are investing in wave energy. In the US, the Department of Energy's Wave Energy Prize competition encouraged innovators to come up with new wave energy technologies. There were 92 teams that participated, and the three winners were AquaHarmonics, an Oregon-based team that developed a wave energy converter that mimics the motion of a fish; CalWave, a team from California that created a device that captures energy from both the upward and downward motions of waves; and Waveswing America, a team from Texas that came up with a device that uses a motion similar to a child's swing to generate energy.

In Europe, the European Marine Energy Centre, or EMEC, has been working on testing wave and tidal energy technologies since 2003. They've got some big names involved in their projects, including Siemens, ABB, and Alstom. And then there's the Wave Hub in Cornwall, UK, which provides a testing site for wave energy devices.

Of course, this is just a small snapshot of the companies and organizations investing in wave energy. There are many more out there, and it's an interesting space to watch as we look for cleaner, renewable sources of energy.