A tri-spar buoy prototype bobs up and down in the wave pool at the University of Rhode Island. Graduate student Jon Merrill, of Rehoboth, has been working on his thesis — "Experimental testing of a spar buoy for wave power generation" — since April 2006.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

NARRAGANSETT

The model is simple: three plastic pipes that form a triangle-shaped buoy, bouncing up and down in a University of Rhode Island wave tank. But it is designs like this that hold the potential to harness a new source of power.

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The spar buoy is part of a research project being conducted by Malcolm L. Spaulding, a professor of ocean engineering at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography; Stephan Grilli, also a professor of ocean engineering; Annette Grilli, an assistant research professor and Stephan Grilli’s wife; and Jon Merrill, a URI ocean engineering graduate student.

Spaulding specializes in computer models of ocean currents. His work has been used to search for people and vessels lost at sea, predict damage from oil spills and track marine pollution.

With the buoy, Spaulding and his fellow scientists hope to turn the churning, rolling ocean waves into pure electricity.

Inside each PVC pipe are magnetic generators capable of producing small amounts of energy, about 0.2 watts at its peak. If the model is built to a larger scale, with pipes 10 meters — or 32.8 feet — it could generate enough power to charge a battery or be an independent power source for an offshore observation station.

“The idea is to get the design so the more ‘heave’ we get, the better,” Spaulding said.

As any sailor, swimmer and surfer can attest, the ocean is a strong and vibrant source of power.

Research in converting wave energy into electricity started in the United States during the 1970s oil crisis, Spaulding said. Since then, there have been many companies attempting to turn the force of the pounding surf and swirling waters into electricity.

Forty-five wave and tidal energy projects have been approved around the country, and 15 other proposals are pending, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Web site.

There are six projects under way that will use the currents of the Long Island Sound. The endeavor that is the furthest along is by Verdant Power, a Canadian-American renewable energy company that recently placed six tidal turbines, similar in design to underwater windmills, in the East River in New York City. The electricity is being used to power a Gristedes supermaket, a parking structure and a Verdant control room, according to the company’s Web site.

Other wave turbines are planned for Vineyard Sound in Massachusetts, off the coast of Florida in the Atlantic, San Francisco Bay in California, Puget Sound in Washington and waterways along Alaska, Maine and Oregon.

In the Ocean State, an Australian company has expressed an interest in tapping into the energy of the waves.

Oceanlinx, a renewable wave energy company based in Sydney, proposes installing a wave turbine off Block Island and 10 turbines off Point Judith. The turbines, which are still being designed, would be floating moors, each capable of generating up to 1.5 megawatts of electricity, said John Bell, the Oceanlinx chief financial officer. One megawatt can power 900 homes, according to energy consulting firm UtiliPoint’s Web site.

The project would cost about $44 million. The company would pay for the Block Island project, which would cost $4 million, while the Point Judith project would be supported by public and private funds, Bell said.

Both proposals are in the design phase and would require approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as well as local government agencies, Bell said. The company has a test model at its site in Port Kembla, Australia.

One of the benefits of wave energy is low pollution.

“There’s no fuel cost in that the wave activity is there,” Bell said. “It’s low visual impact. In our experience, so far, these devices are attractive to marine life. There’s no noise generated. There are no moving parts about it.”

Bell also said the company is developing a version of the turbine that will contain water desalinization equipment to turn ocean water into drinking water. Bell noted that there is a significant water shortage in Australia and they are trying to develop a product that would address the issue.

Plans by Oceanlinx, formerly known as Energetech Australia, to convert Rhode Island’s waves into energy go back to 2003. The company originally planned to install one test turbine along the Point Judith breakwater. The turbine had a water column design, similar to a funnel, and would have produced 500 kilowatts of energy. The project received $500,000 for initial studies from the Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts renewable-energy funds, locally provided through the state Office of Energy Resources.

The project failed to get federal permits and stalled. The economics of the water column design also were not feasible because it would have required a heavy structure to withstand the constant beating of the waves, Bell said.

Oceanlinx also proposes building wave turbines in Oregon, Hawaii and the United Kingdom.

Across the waters in Warren, a Massachusetts company is looking into capturing the movement of the tides for energy.

Meredith Management Corp., a real estate developer from Newton, has proposed installing underwater tidal turbines in the Palmer River. It is part of a proposal to build 350 condominiums and commercial buildings on the former American Tourister mill site on Route 114. The turbine project received a $20,000 feasibility study grant from the state Office of Energy Resources and the proposal is under review by the Warren Zoning Board.

Whether the wave and tide energy proposals will happen, however, is uncertain. In June, the General Assembly failed to pass a bill authorizing the creation of a state power authority, a quasi-state agency that would have issued long-term contracts and bonds to fund renewable-energy projects.

Andrew Dzykewicz, commissioner of the Office of Energy Resources, said he plans to push for the power authority again in next year’s Assembly session.

“Now we got a major effort to preserve those [renewable-energy] projects, somehow,” Dzykewicz said.

IN THE MEANTIME, work on the spar buoy model continues at the University of Rhode Island.

The project was initiated last year by Teledyne Scientific and Imaging LLC, a California oceanographic equipment manufacturer, as a way to provide energy to isolated scientific monitoring stations throughout the seas, Spaulding said.

The common options for powering these stations is to set up a power cable or hiring a vessel to travel to the stations to change batteries, both of which can be extremely expensive, Spaulding said

Instead, creating a floating, renewable generator to fuel these scientific instruments would greatly extend the life of the equipment and its ability collect data, Spaulding said. Another benefit of the spar buoy is that it could also be used as another platform to support the scientific instruments.

The project, which started in January 2006, initially received $130,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The University of Rhode Island contributed $30,000 to continue the research in optimizing the buoy design and study its performance in real waves.

“It’s all very interesting in the tank. … But the acid test is to put this in the field and see what power production you get,” Spaulding said.

Related Web sites:

•Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: www.ferc.gov/industries/hydropower/indus-act/hydrokinetics/permits.asp

Oceanlinx: www.oceanlinx.com

•Meredith Management Corp.: www.meredithmanagement.com/tourister.htm

•Verdant Power: http://verdantpower.com

mlee@pressofac.com