Trying to find the silver bullet in energy is not an easy task. Developing a power source that is clean and widely available, yet also cheaper and more reliable than fossil fuels or intermittent wind and solar has led to a great deal of expensive research but few commercially successful technologies.

Proponents of ocean power, in which converters capture the power of the constant energy provided by high and low waves and tide flows, believe they have the answer – but pricing, infrastructure prejudiced to existing generation types and lack of data all form robust challenges for the still-small sector.

Watching the technology be developed by various small firms, most of them working on wave energy conversion components, is a fascinating exercise in watching an industry develop under extremely trying conditions. Eco Wave Power, which recently tested a “floater” wave energy converter at the Hydro-Mechanical National Institute of Kiev, went so far as to quote a John Henry Newman maxim when releasing its still-encouraging results from the tests: “Nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it,” Eco Wave Power founder David Leb quoted in announcing the details of the test.

Click here to see a Youtube video of the test (with music).

Eco Wave Power says it is aware of the challenges, with Leb noting that earlier research has resulted in “no commercial scale devices available for sale and implementation.” Eco Wave Power is focusing on simple, inexpensive technology that can be deployed quickly with low maintenance requirements, rather than on long life expectancy for its devices.

For more on the ocean power sector and its prospects, watch National Hydro Association president Linda Church-Ciocci discuss the role of innovation in hydropower.