The US is sitting on a mountain of wave energy, adding up to a potential haul of 1,170 terawatt-hours per year of zero emission electricity spread among the coasts of the contiguous states along with Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Too bad the Trump administration isn’t bothering to pursue those resources as part of the President’s “American Energy Dominance” plan — oh, wait. Hold, please. Wave Energy Survives The Trump Chopper For all its whackadoodle focus on fossil fuels, the American Energy Dominance plan does support renewable energy — as long as it doesn’t involve solar panels or wind turbines, especially offshore wind turbines, that is. Biomass, hydropower, and geothermal energy all made the cut when Trump announced the new policy upon taking office last year. Trump himself even gave some US solar manufacturers something to cheer about this past August, when he ordered new limits on imported polysilicon. As a branch of the hydropower field, marine energy has also fallen into the somewhat awkward embrace of the Trump administration. Things looked touch and go for a while last year, but in July of 2025 the Trump administration signaled its support when the Energy Department expanded a longstanding energy collaboration with Norway to include marine energy. The Energy Department-backed TEAMER organization also continues to support R&D efforts at a sprawling network of marine energy research centers located in the US, including inland laboratories and test tanks as well as coastal facilities. More And Better Wave Energy Test Facilities Marine energy is a specific industry, not to be confused with offshore infrastructure that harvests wind or solar energy from fixed or floating platforms. Instead, marine energy devices leverage the kinetic energy of waves, tides, and currents to generate electricity. The payoff is considerable, considering that waves, tides, and currents are in action 24/7, but the engineering challenges are formidable and the pace of progress towards commercial uptake has been slow. The past couple of years has seen an uptick in global activity, though, and lawmakers in coastal states have been lobbying to kick things up a notch. Here in the US, much of the activity has centered around wave energy. The US Navy, for example, has been supporting wave energy testing in Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay in O’ahu since the early 2000’s. That facility has been expanded and upgraded periodically over the years. The Energy Department has also partnered with Oregon State University to develop a full blown, grid-connected, open-water wave energy test bed seven miles off the coast of Oregon. Called PacWave South, the new facility has been in the planning and construction stages for more than a dozen years. It’s worth the wait, though. PacWave aims to turbocharge commercial uptake, partly by relieving wave energy stakeholders from the delays and expense of applying for a permit to test their new devices. The facility is already pre-permitted and has a lease agreement between OSU and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, issued in 2021. The facility also aims to provide stakeholders with cost-shaving mooring systems purpose-built for ocean deployment. “Researchers are currently assessing how a generic mooring solution could help cut costs, by providing for different types of wave energy devices to hook up with the same system. Once complete, PacWave can accommodate up to 20 wave converters, spread among four different berths,” CleanTechnica reported in 2023. PacWave South Survives The Trump Chopper All things being equal, one would expect activity at PacWave South to come to a screeching halt after last year’s sharp U-turn in federal energy policy. One would be wrong. One proof of life occurred last year, when the Bonneville Power Administration signed a formal agreement to take power generated by wave energy devices at the facility. That was just a hint of things to come. Earlier this week, the Energy Department announced that PacWave South is officially open for business. “Thanks to its pre-permitted status, PacWave South allows wave energy developers to test devices without regulatory delays that can add to testing budgets and timelines,” the Energy Department’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation reminded everyone on September 1. Evidently no-one has been waiting around for the paint to dry. “Facility operators have already begun to work with marine energy developers in preparation for the inaugural tests,” OCMEI added. The head of the Energy Department’s Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office, Nichole Fitzgerald, also added her two cents to the announcement. “The PacWave South facility will help reduce testing barriers for wave energy developers and spur innovation to America’s benefit for years to come,” Fitzgerald said. Those years may be rather far off in the future, given the current state of play in the marine energy industry. Still, considering how far the US wind and solar industries have come since the early 2000’s, wave energy stakeholders have a similar opportunity to contribute to the global decarbonization picture. Next Steps For Wave Energy In The US Aside from the official opening of PacWave South, a fresh round of activity has also been stirring in Hawaii, where the National Laboratory of the Rockers (formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) has spent the past five months collecting data from their own in-house “SURF-WEC” wave energy converter in collaboration with the University of Hawaii. As with the TEAMER network and PacWave South, SURF-WEC is aimed at accelerating progress on an industry-wide basis. In a recap posted on September 2, NLR noted that the industry has been held back by a lack of real-life data. “To help fill that void, NLR researchers and University of Hawaii (UH) at Manoa researchers combined their expertise in wave modeling, controls, and ocean deployment to do something different: deploy a low-barrier, small-scale wave energy converter and provide open access to its design, data, and lessons learned,” NLR explains. The converter is about the size of a big-screen TV. It oscillates back and forth with every wave, driving a sealed hydraulic system that produces electricity once sufficient pressure builds up. “What makes SURF-WEC unique is its ability to adapt. Researchers can remotely adjust how the system responds to waves, testing both passive and active modes to better understand how to capture energy more efficiently,” NLR enthuses. If all goes according to plan, data from SURF-WEC will help other stakeholders develop high-efficiency systems that can alternate between active and passive modes without sucking too much electricity into on-board sensors, controls, and other equipment. NLR also draws attention to the “brains” behind SURF-WEC, an operational and monitoring platform called MODAQ 2.0. Information collected by the MODAQ system is shared through a live interface, enabling other stakeholders in the marine energy industry to build on SURF-WEC data and insights. The lab anticipates that SURF-WEC will be up and running for another seven months or so. Anyone and everyone is invited to follow the device’s live data feed here. Image: Wind turbines and solar panels got the thumbs-down from US President Donald Trump, but the new PacWave South wave energy test bed somehow survived the chopper (cropped, courtesy of US BOEM).
