I know we have discussed this before . Huge expense, very long...

I know we have discussed this before . Huge expense, very long term payback and hard to get commitment in govt or industry as massive capital cost up front. This is hard to do in Australia especially as we are a dry country and have few waterways and a enviro movement who refuses most dam ideas.

Ocean and salt water is a massive problem in generation due to corrosion and maintenance costs and barnacles- would be last choice. Closed frshwater systems with very deep low evaporation dams would be ideal but you have to look at the places where there is high enough hills close enough to CWE buoys. Japan and USA with snow melt and also mountains have a distinct advantage in getting it working economically as do nuclear countries who when they need load just turn on the pumps and pump up hill and get enviro points to boot- hmmmmm

We are doing this at the snowy already with pumping backwards up hill and selling premium price power into high load periods

could

1) Use electricity to pump up water . Cable from CWE generators to dams electric pumps .. Allows dam to be more remote from buoy but there is losses in transmission of electricity. Allows solar to also contribute when there is excess locally during daylight .
2) Direct pumping from buoy - not really designed for it and huge losses in pipe friction.


So much of the idea depends on exactly what the energy profile and power generation profile of the buoys are and CWE will be collecting this data on a scale now to know what sort of array and scale would be needed. It is not a high margin end of the business model as there is far more lucrative parts to conquer first.

One thing many forget with CWE is that it needs a scale of array of buoys to justify staff and service vessels etc. It is a big commitment and apart from 1st world islands , military etc where resources , infrastructure and skills are available the model at this stage probably excluded many places people might consider possible. There will be a slow process to get clients due to the burden so CWE heading towards plug and play self contained buoys is a reflection of this and they, if reliable , just need moorings and cable infrastructure and onshore link to grid. Most locations are not in the position to risk unproven deployment as tehy won't have suitable excess in existing power generation capacity so it will take quite a deal to get it over teh line as politicians worldwide don't want to get caught by under performance or unreliability , first mover risk of a new technology. CWE need a record at scale of successful deployment and real world numbers showing real capital and ongoing costs .