Looking at the waves at a beach in Spain Fred Olsen got an idea on how to produce electric power from the sea.

Fred Olsen is a man with visions for the future and he is becoming more and more concerned about Mother Earths health. Based on this concern he has started to look into how we can continue to live on this planet responsibly. One of his ways of doing this is to look into different renewable energy sources.

Fred Olsen started searching for a way of using the power of waves since that was a new area. His search started 7-8 years ago. After a lot of testing he put it to rest as he could not find a good solution that was working.

Then he went to Spain and put some barrels out on the sea to see how they would work. He got an idea and worked together with an engineer, Hans Øigarden, to make it come alive.

Now “Buldra” (eng: rumble), a prototype at a scale of 1:3, is on its way to produce electricity. It is basically a platform made of plastic that is half way submerged in the sea.

The full scale platform can produce 2.5MW. The goal is to get down to a price of 3.5 cent/kwh. At that price the electricity production can compete with a lot of other sources.

For countries with a long coast that can become a new way of income. The danger as I see it is that we suddenly will have all these platforms off the coast like a floating belt where noone can come in or out. The nice side of it is that it open up a lot of new possibilities. What about a home on the sea where you have your own electricity made?

The source of this post is an article in http://www.tu.no, Teknisk Ukeblad  written by Anders J. Steensen.