Abstract
It is time for Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) to be part of the sustainable energy toolbox at a utility level. Solar and wind renewable power systems are now sustainable technologies which are economically competitive with existing fossil fuel and nuclear options. Even though there have been WEC development efforts as long as there have been industrial solar and wind efforts, WEC systems simply have never made it out of the experimental starting blocks. This paper examines prior efforts and examines why they have failed at a utility level and describes the design and engineering of emerging technologies that could make large scale wave energy conversion competitive with present state of the art large scale wind and solar projects. The SurfWEC concept is introduced as a game changing approach to achieve much lower Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) rates than are achievable with existing WEC approaches by enabling significant increases in kinetic energy input to various WEC designs.