A group of scientists from the CAS Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion succeeded on January 9 in their first sea trial of a stand-alone wave power system, marking significant progress in generating stable electricity with wave energy. As a most unstable source of renewable energy, waves are difficult to harness and convert into electricity. Statistics in real sea conditions show that the maximal energy produced by waves could be 7-10 times their average over 10 minutes. Although expensive equipment has been introduced in countries like the UK and Portugal, users still could not directly benefit from the energy if no local grids were available. That decreases significantly the practicability of using this energy source.
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