SeaNergy

Inspired by children playing with a beach ball at the seaside, Shlomo Gilboa an Israeli politician-turned-inventor has invested millions of his own dollars in SeaNergy, a new company and product that share a name. SeaNergy harvests the energy of ocean waves through an offshore farm of buoys.

The technology now being tested off the coast of Haifa can harness 20 times more power from wave energy than any other similar technology in existence today.

Usually, the wave comes and goes in a second, but SeaNergy harvesting system manipulates it, holding the wave level in a reservoir in the buoy, to capture it.

The buoy literally shoots up when it reaches the crest of the wave With the same impact as a ball put underwater in the swimming pool pops up in a huge burst of energy.

SeaNergy is currently working with the Israel Electric Corporation and has been endorsed by engineers at the University of Haifa.

While generating electric power, the system also produces a significant amount of carbon-free desalinated water. It is estimated that a million cubic meters of desalinated water will be produced by a SeaNergy farm that covers a 300 square meter (about 3,229 square foot) patch of water at sea. While traditional desalination plants can produce orders of magnitudes more water, unlike SeaNergy they require an extensive amount of energy input to the system.

Currently a number of large and small companies around the world are negotiating with the company about a first facility, which will require a $2 million investment for four, four-buoy clusters. According to the most conservative projection, the SeaNergy buoy system, which sits below the surface of the waves and pops up as it collects energy, can pay for itself in feed-in tariffs within three years.

Although the company was officially formed in 2008, the idea has been in development for about 15 years, and millions of dollars of personal financing were invested in the prototype. Based in Haifa, SeaNergy employs a small staff of four, but has worked with more than 100 consultants and specialists to get its prototype to ‘float.'

At the Haifa National Museum of Science SeaNergy is presented as an important and radical new green technology. In the near future, you may see its buoys bouncing around a coast near you.

Source: Israel21c