Speaker 1: The future of renewable energy could lie in our oceans. This is Wave Swing, a prototype wave energy generator that uses passing waves to generate power. And the company behind it says it's crushing expectations. We've heard a lot about different ways to capture energy from the ocean in the last few years. Experts say there's enough energy in the ocean to meet the entire world's energy demand. That's why we've seen so many innovative [00:00:30] ideas recently from wave riding generators to artificial blow holes. The latest concept sits below the ocean surface
Speaker 1: Wave swing comes to us from Scottish startup AWS energy. This prototype spent the last six months in testing off Scotland's Ory Islands. If Ory sounds familiar, that's because it's the testing site for lots of other ocean powered energy systems like the orbital title turbine. I covered this after its deployment last year. I'll put the link to the video in the description [00:01:00] below. Now AWS calls wave swinging a submerged wave power buoy at seven meters tall and a four meter diameter wave swing weighs in at 50 metric tons. You can get a sense of just how big it is from this photo showing the prototype on its way to being deployed. It sits below the water surface tethered to the ocean floor. So how does it work? It's broken down into two main components, the floater and the silo. When a wave above the device crests, the [00:01:30] pressure forces the floater down.
Speaker 1: That creates an airs springing below that pushes the floater back up. A generator inside the cylinder then uses both the upward and downward motions to create electricity. AWS says the way wing can go from the dock to under the water and operational in just 12 hours. So after six months at sea, how did it perform? Well, AWS says, During moderate wave conditions, it captured 10 kilowatts of power with peaks of up to 80 kilowatts. Now, [00:02:00] that's 20% better than the company had predicted. For reference, 10 kilowatts is enough to power the average American home. That may not sound like a lot, but this is just a prototype and the company expects future models could capture up to 500 kilowatts of power and they could be placed together in groups of up to 20 AWS Envisions way swinging could be used to power subsea, oil facilities, or even oceanic monitoring stations. The devices fill in its initial testing phases with [00:02:30] this round set to finish before the end of the year and more tests planned for next year. So I wanna know what you think. Is this the wave of the future? Let me know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, prove it by hitting the thumbs up button and you can find more videos on renewable energy in that. What the future playlist. And don't miss another by subscribing to cnet.
