Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

From a distance, they look like nothing more than thin red lines on the horizon, easily lost amid the tumbling blue of the Atlantic Ocean. But get closer and the significance of the 140m-long tubes, 10 years in the making by a British company and now floating in the sea off the coast of Portugal, becomes apparent: they are the beginning of an entirely new industry in the hunt for clean power.

Wave power is seen by some as the holy grail of renewable energy but it hasn’t become a commercial reality - until now that is - the world’s first commercial wave power farm has gone live in Portugal using pelamis sea snakes.

There’s been talk about harnessing the power of the ocean around NZ for sime time with the most recent attempt being the Crest Energy in the Kaipara.

Early in 2007  PGP director Chris Curlett said he thought “the first wave farm could be fully commissioned in New Zealand within the next two-and-a-half to three years. And that would be operational, feeding power direct into the grid … There’s no question that New Zealand’s got the most marvellous wave pattern for marine energy all the way up the west coast.” Read more »