The project started with the idea of creating alternative, unconventional, sources of electricity; this led researches from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) to develop e.Wave, which uses the ocean waves to generate electricity.

Christopher Vega, Juan Luis Guerrero and Julio Rojas, engineers at TEC’s Electro-Mechanic School along with a group of students led by Iván Segura, developed a prototype that takes advantage of wave energy to generate electricity, in the upcoming stages the prototype will be built and tested .

“Originally the project was established with the idea of developing a system that used wave energy to generate electricity and with this widen the alternatives for renewable energy sources; however, eWave has many other uses and projects related to the energy produced by the ocean”, explained the team of researchers.

“Currently the project is geared towards the development of a Testing Platform with artificial waves, with the purpose of creating an investigation lab with all necessary equipment in which we can conduct research on marine energy and controlled prototype testing. The testing platform will be installed in the Electro-Mechanic Engineering School before the end of 2017”, they stated.

United Kingdom, Denmark,Brazil and Chile are pioneer countries that for a long time have been researching and working with marine energy. The project in Costa Rica differs from the existing technologies in that it is being designed to work with the conditions of the country, at a lower cost than the existing systems and without affecting the environment or landscape.

Costa Rica runs almost entirely in renewable energy and this will be an additional source for the country.