Wave energy is a renewable form of energy that practically produces 0 waste, is free, and is sustainable. It can help a lot in reducing the carbon footprint and making the climate a lot better. However, do you know how does wave energy work?
Well, it is interesting how we can use waves to produce electrical energy, and here we will discuss everything you need to know.
How does wave energy work?
Waves in the ocean hold much potential loss when the waves hit the shore. Wave energy production makes good use of that power from the waves to produce energy. Although this technology is rather new and still needs a lot of improvements for higher efficiency, many countries have deployed it to benefit from pollution-less free energy, and here is how it works.
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1. The production of waves in the ocean
The working methodology of wave energy relies on four main steps and the first step in producing waves. It is a natural process because waves are produced with airflow on the ocean’s surface. The waves can be less powerful or more powerful depending on the weather conditions and climate situation.
As the wind moves, it produces waves where the water particles exchange their kinetic energy for potential energy. The continuous movement of wind creates a continuous supply of waves that we can harness to provide wave energy.
2. Placing wave energy harnessing units efficiently
The next step of this process is to produce the wave energy harnessing units. Their efficient placement is necessary considering the placement of waves. That’s why most wave energy harnessing units are placed near the coast, where they can harness wave energy efficiently.
Although this placement is considered to precisely place these units, we can only gain 10-15% efficiency from the wave energy harnessing units. The climate factors and variable behavior of different waves are the culprits here.
3. Capturing the natural movement of waves
As the waves hit these harnessing units or the foaling devices, they move up and down on the ocean’s surface. The energy present in waves is transferred into those floating devices. These devices capture the movement and use the flow of swells to generate power.
It can also be called waves moving generators that produce electricity. While this happens, the wind continues to flow on the ocean’s surface and produces waves. Thus, an endless supply of waves results in endless electricity production using waves.
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4. Transporting the energy for usage
The last step of the process is transporting the energy produced in the generators to the cities. For this, we use a traditional grid system that takes the energy from generators on the ocean’s surface and transports it to the nearby localities.
Remember that this transportation is only effective when done for places near the coast. Currently, this energy cannot be effectively transported to locations far from the coast. The good part here is that wave energy is considerably predictable as we can predict weather conditions most of the time.
With these four simple steps, the low-speed waves on the surface of the ocean help move the generators, which produce electricity. It is how does wave energy work.
Final words
Wave energy production is a perfect way to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. As it is a new form of producing green energy, most people still do not know how does wave energy work. So, we hope you know how it works and how we can significantly benefit from this type of energy in the future.
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