Hace Wage Energy is a small French company developing a wave-powered electricity generation system that can utilize even the smallest waves created in 2013. The project appears to have stalled in 2021.
HACE Wave Energy wave turbines
Wave energy is arenewable form ofpower generated from the kinetic energy of waves and ocean currents. This hydraulic energy is converted into electricity using electrical generators installed on floating or submerged devices at sea. Wave-powered devices are designed to absorb the energy of waves and ocean currents, transforming the movement of water into the rotation of turbines that drive electrical generators. The most commonly used devices are wave buoys, submerged coils and oscillating floats. In this niche, Carnegie Clean Energy and Seabased are two examples.
Wave energy offers a number of advantages, such as constant and predictable availability, a small ecological footprint and high production potential. It can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels in the energy mix. Nevertheless, it remains at the experimental stage.
The special feature of HACE wave turbines is that they can recover energy from even the smallest waves. The company is proposing modules for installations ranging from 10 to 200 kW.
There are several strange elements in what is described. For example, the entrepreneur speaks of a “continuous” source of electricity, whereas swell is by no means continuous.
History, progress and funding
HACE was founded in July 2013 by Jean-Luc Stanek, a former (?) dental surgeon, and is based at Technopole Montesquieu in Martillac, near Bordeaux.
In 2016, the company reportedly raised over €250,000 on crowdfunding platform Happy Capital.
A prototype was launched in 2018 in the port of La Rochelle.
The project was the subject of additional exposure in early 2021 thanks to the fishermen of Saint-Brieuc, who are mobilizing HACE as an alternative to the wind farm they opposed, in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc.
An article in RadioFrance on April 26, 2021 casts doubt on the project’s durability. Indeed, while it has won “a dozen international awards such as the Excellence Award presented in 2019 by the European Commission as part of the ‘Horizon 2020 Instrument PME’ program, the Hace project is now at a standstill.” The president’s claims that it would be“the cheapest energy in the world” are hardly credible: if that were the case, there would be investors and, above all, development projects. What’s more, he’s talking about producing hydrogen with it, when this poses considerable additional difficulties: how would he transport the hydrogen from his platform to the mainland? Where would the electrolyser be located? Which electrolysis technology? Above all: why? In the end, it feels more like the addition of a buzzword…
You can find all the articles tracing the history of the project here: https://www.energiesdelamer.eu/2018/11/12/hace-2/