On a recent sunny morning in a channel at the Port of Los Angeles, seven blue steel structures that look like small boats are lowered into the ocean one by one. Attached to an unused wharf on a site that once housed oil tanks, they gently bob up and down with the waves to generate renewable power. Nearby, a sea lion peeks from the water and pelicans and sea gulls soar overhead.
This is the nation’s first onshore wave energy site, and on Tuesday, Eco Wave Power will officially unveil the pilot installation and begin operating. The pilot will generate just a small amount of electricity that can be used locally, but the larger goal is to prove the technology works well enough to expand along 8 miles of breakwater at the port — enough to power up to 60,000 homes.
