There is a lot of incredible engineering packed into this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Also, don't forget to check out Onshape for FREE: Onshape.pro/Ziroth - You won't regret giving it a try!

Keeping the barnacles and fouling growth controlled is going to be a continuous war. Ask any sea ship company. The inertial mass as the driver for the return stroke is smart. The nice shiny slides etc. and complex gear box strike me as long term maintenance issues though. I am watching this with interest.

My grandfather made a wave generator on his boat, it was just a generator (electric motor of some sort I think?), with weights and springs. it created electricity when offshore with engines off. It worked.

One major problem with many wave-driven generators or anything in relatively slow-moving water is barnacles weighing everything down over time or interfering with moving parts. Anything you permanently install at sea that requires buoyancy or exposed underwater moving parts will likely need to have the barnacles periodically scraped off and an anti-stick coating re-applied.

I had this idea too about 15 years ago, so I calculated the maximum yield during a vacation on Tenerife (I have a Masters degree in mechanical engineering). The waves around Tenerife look great, but even there they're about 2m high and arrive every 10s. To catch the top of a wave efficiently, the diameter of the buoi maxes out at around 3m. This resulted in about 5kW power per buoi, so you need about 1000 buois to generate as much as 1 off-shore wind turbine. This is why I gave up on the idea...

These can easily be placed within (long) swimming distance of a shoreline where marine traffic is a non issue. Also serves as a good "hey, beachgoers, stay inside the bouys" kinda reminder. California should be all over this.

Didn’t know wave energy had been investigated for so long

In the vast expanse where oceans roar, A revolution breaks upon the shore. CorPower's buoy, with ingenuity rare, Unlocks the power of waves with flair. Inspired by nature's timeless design, It harnesses energy, a feat divine. With bio-inspired engineering in its stride, It rides the waves, a renewable tide. Three times more energy, it deftly extracts, From ocean swells, in rhythmic acts. A beacon of hope in the quest for green, It paints a future, serene and clean. No longer bound by winds that blow, Or sunbeams that come and go, Wave energy rises, a force untamed, A beacon of progress, forever acclaimed. With costs set to plummet, as innovation soars, CorPower's buoy opens untapped doors. A new standard in renewable might, Shining brightly in sustainability's light. So let us hail this wave-powered dream, A vision of tomorrow, where possibilities gleam. For in the heart of the ocean's embrace, Lies the promise of a greener, brighter space.

The best thing about this system is that the corrosive environment is totally sealed out of both the electrical AND mechanical components, ensuring a long and reliable life. Brilliant!

Also in Denmark we have tried to make systems for wave energy. None has made it past Project state! We depend on the still larger windmills now built in the North Sea and intended to make huge islands far out, with farms of mills producing absurd amounts of electricity!

Interesting design, I hope it passes the installation tests. I really like the image near the end of the video of mixed offshore wind and the CorPower buoys. Why not fill the space between giant wind towers (where reasonable) with more power generation that can share the infrastructure to get the power ashore.

The system seems well designed. However, I have some doubts about the longevity as there are a lot of parts in it that may all be susceptible to corrosion and wear. And a footer like this has to be really sturdy to withstand high wind load.

I did not expect it to be that big, crazy stuff

Wow, that is the best solution for sea wave energy I ever saw

Thank you Ziroth. The engineering looks like a lot of fun for this engineer.

May I suggest more random distribution and some long- necked sea bird puppet head? This is obviously for aesthetics.Loved the article and thanks.

A low LCOE is nice but I wish you looked into the capacity factor. If it's higher than wind power then it could be a game changer as it lowers the need for batteries.

I've had a simpler idea in mind for a long time: a massive permanent magnet is driven upwards through a coil by a wave, and it drops back again via gravity to also generate power. A 'linear generator' in other words. I doubt that life would ever that simple in practice of course but the concept does have the benefit of easier maintenance and possibly manufacturing too.

Excellent breakdown of the C4's engineering and testing. Your ability to make these technical topics engaging is outstanding!

Thanks for this video! Extremely well done and thoughtful. I would think another advantage of wave energy is it's fairly steady with a much lower level of intermittency than wind or solar. Maybe not quite good enough to call it a reliable base load, but I would think pretty close.

VERY interesting. Promising! You say the pneumatic system works with "air instead of fluid." Air IS fluid. In common usage, sometimes fluid DOES mean liquid as opposed to solid or gas, but this is a science and technology channel so it seems right to stick to the more exact usage. Sorry to nitpick. But I really like this video and your other work as well. Thanks! From Wiktionary: Noun fluid (countable and uncountable, plural fluids) 1) Any substance which can flow with relative ease, tends to assume the shape of its container, and obeys Bernoulli's principle; a liquid, gas or plasma. [How I suggest the term be used in science and tech pieces] 2) A liquid (as opposed to a solid or gas). [How the term was used in this video] 3)(specifically, medicine, colloquial, typically in the plural) Intravenous fluids.

This is one of the best videos about Wave energy. CorPower is an invention based on trusted and well handeled theory. This is uncommon with most other wave energy videos. However CorPowers technology is based on a very sophisticated working principle, with constantly tuned mass damper. Most people will not be able to understand why CorPower is more efficient than most other wave energy converters. I am a machine engineer, but must admit that the working principle is beyond my understanding. But have been told by an expert that CorPower is one of a very few projects that may succeed. I dont expect wave energy to be a commercial succes ever. But I have a very short list of the two most promising projects: Wave Piston and CorPower. All other projects are without any chance of succes. And are just a vaste of money and time.

Each of your episodes is jam-packed with interesting information I didn't know I wanted to know! Always a pleasure to watch; I expect your channel to do VERY well! Thanks for your efforts!

Great video. The potential energy in waves is so huge. Additionally, enough wave energy devices could potentially help with storm surges too. Although that hypothesis may prove unattainable. In short, once wave energy technology is reliable and financially feasible, it'll be a game changer. Very little need for any other energy sources.

Waves make me happy cause they are always waving.

Great video Ryan. I've not seen a natural energy harvester design quite like this before, very clever! I feel like there's a recurring theme of mimicking/getting inspiration from natural things within engineering (in this case the heart). Also, whilst the aesthetics of large wind turbines in the ocean is subjective... there's no debate that these have a far smaller visual footprint, and in my opinion are therefore much less intrusive of the landscape visually.

Well done. Good content. Good video length choice. On the strength of this I'll definitely take a look at your other videos.

Such an incredible technology! Thanks for another great video!

I had an idea for a wave generator system when I first saw one of those "octopus" amusement park rides in operation. I realized immediately that if a barge/comparment was perched atop a smart network of floating footpods, the wave action could drive pistons that could siphon off energy.

Best video on the topic I`ve seen! You have done your homework here (not to mention your other videos)! And that`s coming from someone who was involved with wave energy for 15 years! I do think that CorPower is hands-down the winner in this niche, however I cannot see it competing with Floating Offshore Wind as the interest, money, and O&G experience has shifted there in part because of all the repeated overpormises and ego-driven failures of the WE industry in the past 50 years. Let`s hope CorPower can break the trend! At this point we need all the renewable electricity we can get. One thing that you did not mention (but which of course is repeated ad nauseam by propoenents is that wave energy is less intermittant than wind or solar. And where did you get the LCOE figure at 10:25 from? Keep up the good work!

Nice description, it looks like a promising design. I've been interested in wave power for a long time, there's so much of it, and most people live along coasts. The trick is good mooring seafloor attachment and stopping corrosion. Logistically these look good, drop and tow.

Thanks for sharing, always found wave energy an interesting technology. Living in Central New York I’ve often thought it would be a good addition to our power supply mix if it was to be implemented in Lake Ontario. It a very choppy lake with plenty of available power without the complexity of being in sea water. I’m sure other Great Lakes would likely be just as likely for successful systems like this.

Brilliant engineering and very well explained. The big problem with wave energy, like wind power, is that it isn't predictable. There are sometimes long periods of calm. That is why tidal stream energy is so much better. As long as the moon keeps going round the earth the tides flow around our coasts twice a day.

I've been following wave technology for a long time. This looks promising. Excellent presentation as usual.

Switchgear electrician here. Better to split power output into three branches, with separate paths to shore. Yes, more expense, but also cables are less expensive (thinner) and three is more reliable than one. We know that electric fields are used by a variety of aquatic critters for sensing, and we don't know how they will react.

This is without a doubt my favorite wave energy concept. I really hope that the ideas that are promising just get funding and they start giving it a go because I'm so tired of seeing great advancements but everyone only talks about the money aspects holding it back from happening.. If we don't start making new things and putting money into them, then of course fossil fuel companies will continue to argue that their option is best and cheapest. I wish we could commit to modern advanced nuclear energy options as well

Great video! Thanks for your hard work.

Some people are commenting about barnicles and other sea life things that like to stick onto surfaces like boat hulls, it's a fair point and I was wondering if there's any "no maintenance/minimal maintenance" and if not, what would the costs be to have divers clean the bouys? Also if this whole system becomes wide spread, would that not create jobs for diving cleaners?

Title: "How This Buoy JUST UNLOCKED Unlimited Wave Energy" First 20 seconds of the video: "But that COULD all be set to change"

One challenge I see is how to make all the generators in phase with each other, as they all have to feed the same grid. The phase of the wave under each buoy is not synchronized with that under the other buoys. How did the engineers tackle this problem?

Really great, well worth a watch. I lookfoward to see acres of these around the UK underneath the wind turbines

Are there estimations from third parties about the system's potential effects (during long term operation, not just installation) on marine life? And can anything dislodge the anchoring system (e.g. earthquakes)? Now regarding actual practicality: Half of my small country and ~90% of its population are by the sea, and calculating the very peak power generation of these (the average is not quoted) against an average yearly electricity consumption here (as if excess power from times of lower consumption can be stored) we would require over 4,000 buoys in operation. Calculated for real time peak electricity consumption during the summer results in 25,000 buoys required. Considering the peak power generation could very well be double the average, I can't imagine having 10,000 such giant buoys along our ~170km shoreline in order to possibly replace all other energy production methods (again, with a hypothetical energy storage method, as covering peaks in real time would require many more tens of thousands). I can't even imagine these supplementing just 25% of our energy requirements as that would still require around 20 buoys per kilometer throughout the entire shoreline.

Great video, great tech, great sponsor, thanks!

Brilliant. Thank you!

At the beginning my man's said "comes quick and fast" 😂

Great with some qualified focus on this exciting area of renewal energy 👍

Fascinating, and an excellent presentation.

Seems like a great idea. It will live or die by LCOE (mentioned around 9:00 ). The cost per MWh they claim is at least kinda interesting, particularly if they can get the cost down at scale.

Fascinating! Many thanks 🙂🙏🏼

Netflix: Are you still watching? Someone’s daughter:

Great Vid- cheers Z.

The Achilles heel of renewal energy calculations is maintenance and decommission cost. Usually these wind, solar and wave technologies are in the mercy of weather and their live span is short, 15-25 years in real life. They are installed on hard to reach places thus making both costs high. For some reason, decommissioning costs are not taken in to account, even though they matter more with these compared to most fossil and nuclear plants with 50+ year life.

Excellent well edited video.

Awesome Video sir!

Now that's a smart solution. Hope it takes off!

And yes, phasing with the period of the sea matched with the device would indeed greatly increase its efficiency. Very cool.

I love the generators but think the anchors and cables should be built by a state or coalition of entities that are focused on building new habitat. Building an artificial reef system that works as an anchor and transmission network for offshore wind, solar and wave energy would allow unlimited small players to enter the market by allowing them to focus on their products because 95% of the time and cost is eliminated. Combining the offshore habitat creation with the offshore energy needs allows us to build habitat on the scale needed and to have it all funded by transmission fees. Adding fresh water lines opens up additional options from offshore desalination, where brine can be used in kelp farms that are fed and cooled with artificial upwelling or and or diluted, to allowing offshore transport between cities. ( a us west coast infrastructure reef from LA to Washington state connects electric grids and water systems) A continuous reef with multiple structures reaching the surface, fish farms, kelp farms, shellfish farms and the entire reef developed as a managed preserve would dramatically improve water quality and fisheries. The reef allows unlimited power and water to come from the ocean and the CO2 the reef naturally removes from the ocean is enough to significantly change the alkalinity along the entire coast.

600kw from a device that expensive to construct is devastating.

I still like the CETO system. One of it's main advantages is it's anchored to the seabed. The corpower system is on the surface which makes it vulnerable to storms and shipping, also a bit of an eyesore.

Actually, you could have a much longer tube like structure, and capture the energy of those 18.5 metre high waves as well. That would 1. produce much more energy, 2. allow for continuous operation in all weathers, and 3. act as a slight damper to such storms, marginally reducing their destructive damage on the nearby shoreline.

Great! Can’t wait to never see this in the real world! ☹️

Looks a much simpler and self-contained solution than many. If they can be successfully attached to the sea bed, maintenance could be quite low. A ship with a crane could just up lift for on-land refurbishment and attach a newly serviced unit. I wonder in what depth they can be deployed?

There was tide mill's in East Anglia since the medieval period, but nothing wave powered :)

I am impressed at your passion on the subject matter Sir. Good luck with your endeavors. Peace v

Excellent presentation this looks like a much more ecological solution than windmills.

This is an efficient and well thought out design🏆 🤔My question is how does it deal with “fouling” (growth of marine organisms) on the sliding cylinders, I can see how constant friction would deter accumulation, but what about the low areas that would only be traveled on with high oscillating waves❓

This system looks very intriguing. But I am puzzled by the anchor. The anchor is a LONG, rigid cylinder (8:00, 10:29), with a large 'bulb' at its bottom. For this to be vibro-hammered into the seabed, implies the seabed consists of deep layers of loose soil (not what I expected). The anchor (7:58, 10:36) is vibro-hammered into the seafloor. The piston assembly (8:42 - 8:44) is mounted to the anchor via. a flexible coupling (4:27). The underwater assembly is very briefly shown at (8:45). I am puzzled by the sea floor and bending moments on the piston. NOTE: Minor error at 4:07- "Work with air instead of a fluid" is wrong. Air is also a fluid. It should say 'work with a compressible fluid (air) instead of an incompressible fluid (liquid)

It's E·lec·tric·i·ty and not Ele·trizi·tea.

An excellent job was done 😊

The economics of power generation are driven by physics. Generation efficiency depends on the concentration of energy. High concentrations of energy (speed, pressure, heat, height etc) improve efficiency. Wave energy is low density energy. It takes a lot of materials (concrete, steel, other) to harvest low density energy. Wave generators have to be able to cope with the worst storms. That adds to the weight and cost of materials. Very very difficult to build economically viable wave generation. That is why these types of projects rarely get past the pilot stage.

Finally an alternative energy solution that doesn't destroy the environment, and ocean animals as ocean wind turbines do. Also does not despoil the aesthetics. Possibly providing good energy most of the time, not like only 30% ave for wind and solar. Let's hope this is a good solution. if they can get the issues of longevity of the system and big maintenance requirements addressed. There have certainly been many many wave energy systems failures.

$75 per MWH compares with £245 ($311) per MWH for the UK domestic consumer price. I wonder why there is such a big difference? It is almost as if the raw cost is irrelevant.

Interesting video but you'd need a lot of these 600KW wave generators to replace a single 8MW offshore wind turbine. You also need more connections to join them all up. Also remember that anything immersed in sea water will suffer from corrosion - the generators in offshore turbines are generally around 100m above the sea but these are actually in the sea. The fiberglass shell of the device certainly reduces the LCOE but will it survive impacts with debris that can be floating in the sea? Will it be equipped with a pump in the event of a puncture and will it notify controllers that something needs to be fixed. Do they work in all sea states (other than flat calm)?

The best part, is you don't need any expensive limited materials.

Is recycling solved for these composite materials?

Take a shot every time he pronounces something wrong (you will die)

The tuning is like MPPT on solar panels. The system load is adjusted to match what the driver can push at that moment.

How it will be developed if it's so much more expensive than the wind power?

Great video I really enjoy this information! Also the whole time my ears heard you say "Boy" instead of "Buoy." xD

What a great innovation!

A clever idea. I cant think how adjusting their resonant frequency to match the waves could be achieved relatively easily with any other type of mechanism. Also, apart from needing to access them for maintenance, I imagine these could be packed closely together without affecting one another, unlike wind turbines.

AS a side effect, if deployed in a pattern and equipped with suitable AI devices, these buoys could provide an effective defense against naval attacks on coasts.

Ideally this should be areas that are protected from fishing. With some enhancements, you could build a whole ecosystem.

Neat stuff, but still has one of the most pressing issues as wind power: _too much copper._ It's monstrously inefficient to be making so many small generators.

Might work for preventing coastal erosion too. A few rows of those parallel to the coast should be able level the waves.

With the substantial infrastructure of large wind turbines already working well, perhaps it could be efficient to have one machine that uses wind and wave power, or to have wave power mechanisms that hug the base of existing wind turbines?

Finally a great idea!

You add in the fact that they have to bury the fiberglass blades in the ground when they're done with them 🤯. This is already a million times less pollutant than the other methods like wind and solar. Wave energy is just an extension of gravity energy.

Interesting, didn't hear about this company here in Sweden, but seems this tech have potential

would this absorb storm wave height and provide a percentage of protection to sensitive coastal areas prone to erosion?

Imagine, you could hop from Scotland to Canada.

Thank you for an interesting video. I hope this time it will actually work! I'm a little curious how the energy is brought on shore and how this ties in to the whole intermittency/storage issue. Can combinations with wind/solar mitigate that issue?

Why dont they integrate this technology with offshore wind farms. The float can bob up and down on the shaft of the wind turbine, and you get the best of both.

If it can be done in man made pools/reservoirs near traffic noise/trains etc, then the noise pollution can generate the wave energy with right acoustics.

Oh, what a clever buoy you are!

Since waves get there energy from the lunar interaction with earth that causes tides, if we take buoy energy to the exteme and fill the ocean with them, isnt there a danger of causing unintended side effects in the same way that planets that are interacting through gravity can steal spin energy from each other? the buoys get their energy from the waves, the waves get it from the tides, the tides get it from gravitational interaction with the moon, so the buoy energy is essentially sapping the energy of the gravitational interaction of the earth and moon.

With placement in the vicinity of offshore rock outcrops and shoals that are already hazards to navigation these buoys could serve a dual purpose as aids to navigation. A government/private partnership would defray some of the costs involved in deployment and maintenance.

Have you considered that like wind power, wave power is dependent on the wind? Tidal power is at least predictable if predictably intermittent.

Great vid, thanks. I'd have loved a few more figures, not just LCOE, but predictability, area of sea needed, ability to work amidst wind turbines and so forth. Well worth another video. Oh! and potential for suitable sites, worldwide. Please.

There's sort of like a perpetual motion taint to wave energy that makes it harder to achieve. Moving water, thats great. Reversing direction, not so great. But with the gearboxes, like an automatic watch, we can engineer past that limitation