PacWave

PacWave (formerly known as the Pacific Marine Energy Center South Energy Test Site) is an Energy Department-funded, grid-connected, full-scale test facility for wave energy conversion technologies—the first of its kind in the United States. The site is currently being developed off the coast of Newport, Oregon, by faculty and staff in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS) at Oregon State University (OSU). The Energy Department announced the selection of the OSU-led team to develop the facility in December 2016 and initial operation is expected to begin between 2021–2022 based on material procurement timelines.

The test facility will be able to accommodate up to twenty wave energy converters (WEC)—devices that convert wave energy into electricity—in four separate test berths simultaneously. Each berth will have a dedicated transmission cable and the site will be generally pre-permitted for a variety of WEC technologies. WECs are one range of devices in the Energy Department’s research and development portfolio that generate energy from the ocean. Others include tidal and current energy converters as well as ocean thermal energy conversion technologies. These devices are part of a collective suite of marine renewable energy technologies that convert the energy of waves, tides, and river and ocean currents into electricity.