Private Wave Power Beats NZ Government Program

According to this article, Wave energy company gets jump on rival , (4/24/05), a private Auckland, New Zealand company is hoping to beat the New Zealand government to bring wave power to the country. The article reports that Power Generation Projects, a small Auckland alterantive power company is negotiating with Britain's Ocean Power Delivery system to bring its Pelamis project to New Zealand. Pelamis has been tested off the coast of Scotland and has fed power into the UK grid. Pelamis wave energy converters are also about to begin commercial service in a Portugese alternative power scheme within weeks.

Power Generation believes that if commerical viability is proven, that Pelamis wave energy converters could feed the local grid in a little over two years, well ahead of the government's four year project to develop a wave energy prototype.

In my view, it's this foreign market that the U.S. misses out on by failing to fund wave energy. There are opportunties for exporting or licensing ocean technologies in other countries - but U.S. companies can't do that unless they can find funds for development and fewer barriers to testing new technology. And that's not the present environment, though perhaps that may all change soon.