The United States has focused the majority of its solar energy efforts on solar and wind power for the grid. For the first time ever, wave power is being utilized in the U.S. to power homes off the coast of Hawaii.
Waves are being turned into electricity through the Azura prototype, which captures the complex motion of waves to more efficiently capture wave movement for better electricity generation.
The device, which was deployed last month, will be monitored for one year to measure effectiveness and efficiency. If all goes as well as researchers predict, a larger version will hit the seas in 2017.
This from Popular Science:
Though this is the first, there are a lot more wave energy projects in the works. The Department of Energy (DOE) notes that over 50 percent of the population in the United States lives within 50 miles of the coast, making waves (and their energy) an easily accessible renewable energy option.
