Along a rocky wharf at the Port of Los Angeles on Tuesday, seven blue steel structures bobbed in the gentle wake of a Catalina Island ferry. The bouncing floaters marked a moment for clean energy — the first onshore wave power project in the country.
The floaters belong to Eco Wave Power, a Swedish company behind the pilot project located at AltaSea, a nonprofit ocean institute at the port. They harness the natural rise and fall of the ocean to create clean electricity 24 hours a day.
The pilot project will generate a modest 100 kilowatts of power — enough for about 100 homes — but company officials said the ultimate goal is to install steel floaters along the port’s 8-mile breakwater to generate about 60 megawatts of power, or enough for about 60,000 homes.
Such an achievement could be replicated along other parts of the U.S. coastline, according to Inna Braverman, Eco Wave Power’s co-founder and chief executive. She noted that the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that wave power has the potential to provide more than 60% of the country’s energy needs.
“This pilot is more than a project — it’s a milestone,” Braverman said. “It shows that wave energy can be deployed right here, along existing port infrastructure, without harming the ocean, without taking up valuable space and in a scalable way.”
CEO of Eco Wave Power Inna Braverman in the control room of the first wave energy project in the U.S. at AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
The technology uses the bobbing floaters to compress pistons, which push hydraulic fluid into storage tanks located nearby on land. As the pressure increases inside the tanks, it spins a motor, which turns a generator that makes clean electricity.
This is different from wave technology offshore, which can be more expensive to install, harder to repair and more difficult to connect to a grid because it’s farther from land, Braverman said. Capturing the energy at the shore enables Eco Wave Power to keep the “expensive parts” on dry land and avoid disturbing the seabed or marine environment.
And unlike other renewables such as wind and solar power, which cannot produce electricity around the clock unless accompanied by batteries, wave energy is 24/7.
The hydraulic system is seen in the container used as a control room as well as the area where the energy is produced during the official opening of the first wave energy project in the U.S. at AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
The two-year pilot at the Port of L.A. is one of several efforts from Eco Wave Power, which is also pursuing projects in Taiwan, India, Portugal and New Jersey, and already has connected a wave energy project to the grid in Israel. Its total project pipeline is more than 404 megawatts.
“I think what they’re doing is an incredibly important stepping stone toward a proper full-scale deployment in the ocean,” said Bryson Robertson, director of the Pacific Marine Energy Center and a professor at Oregon State University, who is not involved with the project.
“Any time people are testing and developing novel technologies — particularly those that harness the renewable power of the ocean — that’s a fantastic situation,” Robertson said. “I think it’s great to see this technology move forward.”
Indeed, the pilot could help the city and state reach their ambitious climate goals, including L.A.’s plan to reach 100% clean energy in L.A. by 2035, and California’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2045.
It could also help clean up the port, which has long struggled with pollution issues linked to ship engines, diesel trucks and other freight equipment that spews particulate matter into the air. Communities near the port, such as Wilmington and Carson, suffer from some of the worst air in the area.
Projects like Eco Wave Power are “critical for us in our long-term strategy to become the first zero-emission port complex in the world,” said Michael Galvin, the port’s director of waterfront and commercial real estate. The complex, which includes the Port of L.A. and the adjoining Port of Long Beach, aims to convert all cargo-handling equipment to zero emissions by 2030, and all short-haul trucks to zero emissions by 2035.
Scaling onshore wave energy is not without challenges, however. While the U.S. has a lot of potential, the country’s entire coastline would never be covered in wave energy devices, Robertson said.
Instead, researchers are studying the best ways to deploy the technology, including taking advantage of existing infrastructure, as Eco Wave Power has done. The wharf at AltaSea had not been used in about 20 years.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been slashing federal funding for renewable energy projects, including wind and solar, while clearing the path for fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. However, the president’s sweeping January executive order geared toward “unleashing American energy” named hydropower as a potential future source of domestic energy, and wave energy proponents are hoping that includes them.
“No country in the world owns the marine energy sector,” Robertson said. “The U.S. still has a very unique opportunity to be a global leader in this sector and sell that technology to the rest of the world.”
The pilot project at AltaSea cost less than $1 million, about half of which was funded by Eco Wave Power and half by the oil and gas company Shell, according to Braverman, the chief executive. She said the company recently did a feasibility study and identified an initial 77 sites in the U.S. that would be suitable for the commercial wave energy.
At scale, she said the cost is comparable to onshore wind, and less than offshore wind.
Many of the biggest barriers for wave energy so far have been logistical, including a lack of regulatory framework and licensing pathways. The project at AltaSea needed licenses from the Port of L.A. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which took about two years, she said.
Eco Wave Power blue floats are dropped in the water at the opening of the first wave energy project onshore in the U.S. at AltaSea.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
But she is optimistic that as the technology develops, projects can be built and deployed much faster. Recent state legislation, Senate Bill 605, directs California to create a comprehensive roadmap for wave energy.
“Today, we are not just cutting a ribbon,” Braverman said as onlookers gathered along the wharf. “We are opening the door to a new era of clean energy for California and for the world.”