Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the status of wave energy conversion (WEC) technologies from a different perspective. Past studies based on WEC systems are summarized and classified in terms of WEC system components to clearly reveal the performance, efficiency and development of WEC technologies over the last two decades. It has been proved that the individual components of a WEC system, such as types of wave energy converter and generator motion, control methods and power electronic converter, have a close relationship with each other and that no single component can be optimized without considering the others. It can be helpful to divide into descriptive parts to provide a better understanding of the development process for WEC technologies so that studies based on WEC technologies are discussed by regarding types of wave energy converters, generators, control methods, controller applied sides, waves, power electronic converters and validations and publication year in this paper.