Despite decades of research and development that have yielded several innovative ways of using oceans to fuel power generation, the contribution of ocean energy to the global energy mix has stalled at about 530 MW, most of it installed in 1966 and 2011.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the widespread adoption of technologies that seek to harvest power from ocean surface waves, tidal currents, deep ocean currents, thermal gradients, and changes in salinity continues to be hampered by a number of crippling factors.
