Report: Ocean Energy, An untapped resource

Energy derived from the natural forces that act on the world’s oceans is evaluated in SEP’s latest IFR Topic Report. Development of energy capture devices for the four types of ocean energy, including tidal, wave, ocean thermal and salinity gradient, are low-to-mid stage TRL and are not yet being produced at scale. Considerable development of technology occurred about 15-20 years ago and recently there has been a resurgence of tech development at research institutions and by startups with notable concentrations in the Northwestern US and Scotland. While current estimates for the cost of ocean energy represent a broad range, the lower end of the spectrum is not far from the cost of large-scale intermittent solar PV with battery storage. Ocean energy has the technical potential to meet a large portion of the global energy needs, has much higher capacity factors (less intermittent) than wind or solar, and exhibits favorable green metrics.