Building offshore wind farms is a costly thing to do. The turbines themselves will set you back a few bob, and then they have to be connected to the national grid - underwater and often over long distances.

It’s in everyone’s interest to squeeze as much energy as possible out of the turbines once they’re up and running, so that payback for the huge investment will arrive quicker. More electricity = more money.

So why not throw a bit of wave energy into the mix? That was the question that Green Ocean Energy asked themselves before answering it with “that’s a good idea, lets build a wave power generator that you can attach to wind turbines to increase the output of an already existing infrastructure without increasing the cost too much and that won’t infringe on any aspect of the turbines.” Or put more simply, the Wave Treader.

The Wave Treader is a contraption that attaches to offshore wind turbines to harness the waves that are constantly flowing past them. Green Ocean Energy estimate they could generate up to 500KW per Treader, adding quite a boost to each turbine. Offshore turbines currently generate between 1 and 3 MW, so an ocean wind farm with 30 turbines and an output of 60MW could actually generate 75MW, increasing its output by a quarter. And the cost of the wave generators would be reasonable as the infrastructure is already in place.

Green Ocean Energy are so confident in the idea they think they can have them ready for the commercial market by 2011, and are building a prototype now.

We like the idea a lot. There are some serious engineering feats to overcome to make the Wave Treader work effectively, and without putting the turbines at risk of damage, but we can leave that to Green Ocean Energy to sort out!