Oregon Public Broadcasting

An Oregon-based alternative energy company is one step closer to generating electricity from the ocean's waves. The company has launched a prototype wave energy buoy. For testing, the startup chose the gentler waters of Puget Sound.

A prototype of a wave-energy buoy

That bright yellow contraption bobbing in the saltwater offshore of Seattle is a small version of what may dot the oceans one day. The prototype is successfully generating clean, renewable power... though not very much.

Ken Rhinefrank: "Yes, it makes electricity and charges our instrumentation batteries."

Ken Rhinefrank helped design the wave energy buoy at Corvallis-based Columbia Power Technologies. He explains how it works.

Ken Rhinefrank: "We have a float and a vertical spar and there is a rotary drive shaft that is connected between the two."

The passing waves lift and lower the float to push the shaft, which eventually spins an electric turbine. Rhinefrank says the sea trial will run until August.

A competitor has a head start. Later this year,Ocean Power Technologies Inc. expects to anchor the first of ten planned electric-generating buoys off Reedsport, Oregon. 

That installation is slated to become the West Coast’s first utility scale wave energy park. On the Web:

Video - Columbia Power Technologies prototype in Puget SoundColumbia Power TechnologiesReedsport OPT Wave Park