InfinityWEC is a 500 kW wave energy converter with advanced control technology to maximize energy output from every wave, designed to use mainly low cost and low carbon materials. InfinityWEC is suitable for the same areas as floating wind power, in 80 – 200m water depth. A comparison of the material efficiency shows that InfinityWECs cost and CO2 footprint per MW installed capacity are 7x lower compared to floating wind power.

The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is the standard metric for renewable energy technologies. LCOE gives the complete picture for an installation and is derived from cost of equipment (CAPEX), operation & maintenance (OPEX) and annual energy production (AEP). Early-stage technologies must use assumptions and estimations of unknowns and learning curves, to compare LCOE with mature and established technologies such as offshore wind power, which already has several GW of power installed.

The material efficiency is an important complement to the LCOE to estimate the economic potential of renewable energy technologies. This is a straightforward metric to benchmark emerging technologies versus mature and established technologies. It assumes that cost per ton for each material is the same for all technologies, as well as the CO2 equivalent per ton. This makes it possible to calculate and compare the total cost and CO2 emissions of materials used per MW installed capacity.

Mikael Sidenmark, CEO, says: “The reason for the exceptional techno-economic potential of InfinityWEC is the combination of firstly using mainly low-cost materials such as concrete in the buoy and high-density ballast in the gravity base anchor, and secondly, the design of the power take-off with very high annual energy production per ton of steel.”
Source: Ocean Harvesting