Columbia Power Technologies

Columbia Power Technologies is a provider of clean energy using natural energy from ocean waves.

Columbia Power Technologies provides direct-drive wave energy systems. It can be seized and deployed in a wide range of applications from powering oceanographic sensors to generating megawatt-scale electricity. The system is designed for a long service life and to operate offshore in the widest range of sea conditions. It also offers design solutions such as a non-corrosive composite structure and highly-efficient direct-drive generators. The design, consulting, and manufacturing suppliers and partners of the company are SIEMENS, ERSHIGS, INTERMOOR, NNMREC, and GARRAD HASSAN. The U.S. federal partners are the U.S. department of energy and the U.S. department of Navy. Oregon Angel Fund invests in the company’s growth. Their utility-scale wave power system, The StingRAY represents the culmination of academic and corporate development. In the product development effort, they emphasize stepped-scale testing and has run their models such as tank-tested prototypes and has completed sea trials of an intermediate-scale prototype. The StingRAY captures energy from each passing wave and produces electricity on-board the device at any level. The electricity generation process includes a series of steps starting with the transfer of captured energy from the forward and aft floats to two rotaries, low-speed, high-torque electric generators on board the StingRAY. The generated power is then conditioned to stable, electric-grid-compatible output. In a wave farm, this electricity is collected in an offshore sub-station for transmission ashore and connection to the grid. Columbia Power Technologies is a U.S.-based company that was founded in 2005 by Greenlight Energy Resources.