Let a moving water column push the air.
Waves can do work without a propeller sitting in their path. OceanEnergy’s floating chamber converts their movement into an alternating airflow.
IE IrelandIn practice. The Irish OceanEnergy group deployed its OE35 demonstration buoy at the US Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site off Oahu in July 2024, with Irish and US public support.
What to keep in view
This entry concerns the Hawaii demonstrator. Rated capacity, planned grid connection and later European projects are distinct from measured long-term output.
Use the sea as the moving piston
The OE35 is an oscillating-water-column device. Water moving inside the floating structure changes the volume of trapped air. That air moves through a turbine as the water rises and falls.
The approach keeps the turbine in the air circuit rather than requiring it to turn directly in seawater. OceanEnergy developed the technology through smaller trials before taking the much larger demonstration buoy to the Hawaiian test site.
Make the ocean trial the evidence
The company announced deployment in July 2024 and described commissioning and grid connection as subsequent steps. Deployment is a significant engineering milestone, but it should not be confused with a published record of continuous commercial generation.
An ocean-energy device has to survive mooring loads, corrosion, access constraints and changing seas as well as capture power. The value of a full-scale test lies in learning how that whole system behaves away from the controlled environment of a wave tank.
Read next.
A wave machine with two responses.
Both bring wave-energy hardware into full-scale sea trials. Different conversion mechanisms still face the same demanding marine environment.
Store offshore energy in compressed air.
Both test energy infrastructure offshore. Compare capturing wave motion with storing energy using compressed air.