A team of researchers has shown that static electricity generators could potentially hold the key to unlocking the ability to harness the power of waves for electricity generation.
Currently, the main issue faced by science is the fact that waves dissipate their energy in three directions and are unpredictable. Coupling those factors with seawater’s corrosive and hostile nature and generating power from a seemingly unending power source becomes a challenge.
Currently, the world uses 23,000 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, and waves alone can produce a whopping 32,000 terawatt-hours of natural energy per year, which would meet the demands of the entire planet and some.
The team demonstrated that using triboelectric nanogenerators, or TENGs, they could convert the motion and rhythm of the waves into electricity.
The groundbreaking work was presented at an American Institute of Physics online conference by researchers from the University of Porto in Portugal.
You can learn more about it here.
