Making waves in Finland

Espoo Finland-based AW-Energy has invented a novel way to generate electricity from ocean waves.

While most energy solutions use the movement of waves on the surface of the sea to create power, the company's so-called WaveRoller is claimed to be the first solution to harness waves at the bottom of the sea near the shoreline.

The company claims that this approach has its benefits - the WaveRoller is better at resisting storms, has no visual impact on the environment and generates practically no noise.

The WaveRoller device itself is a plate anchored on the sea bottom by its lower part. The back and forth movement of the waves move the plate, and the kinetic energy produced is collected by a piston pump. This energy is then converted to electricity by a closed hydraulic system in combination with a hydraulic motor/generator system.

Because WaveRoller is a modular concept,  plant capacity can be incrementally increased by connecting together a number of modules.