Sea snake wave power device looks promising

Sometimes the best inventions come in small packages, like the ‘Anaconda’ created by Checkmate Seaenergy Ltd to harvest the energy potential created by ocean waves.

The Anaconda is simply a long piece of rubber tubing that fills with water and as waves push through it the power drives a turbine that converts the power into energy.

While the Anaconda is not yet available in its full size, developers and the government hope the 9m test model running in a test tank will live up to its full potential.

At full size developers believe the Anaconda could reach lengths of 200m long and produce 1MW of power at a cost of £2 million.

1 MW of power is enough to power a thousand homes approximately, and if farms of around fifty Anacondas were placed off the UK coastline then, according to the Carbon Trust Fund, wave power could be the leading renewable energy source in the UK, powering over 50,000 homes.

By 2050, the Carbon Trust Fund estimates that wave power could add about 10-20GW to the UK, especially in coastal areas.

The Anaconda device would be placed at sea level and made to catch waves from the open head-on area.

The waves would push through and swell until the final pulse of water hit the turbine at the end for the maximum effect and the largest energy production.

Currently fuel energy costs about 6p per KWh to produce and wave energy costs 25p per KWh to produce, but with the technology from the Anaconda wave energy pricing could reduce down to 9p per KWh.

Two similar devices, the Pelamis and the SeaGen were tested last year but faced technical difficulties due to the harsh sea current patterns.

However, designer Paul Rainey of Anaconda is still optimistic and stated that the worst thing that can happen is the device washes up on the beach and has to be fixed in order to try again, making it a very safe potential source of energy.