California Wave Power Tech

Brief Description

CalWave Power Technologies Inc. provides a solution to harness the renewable power of ocean waves to produce electricity and freshwater. CalWave’s patented Wave Energy Converter (WEC) is moored offshore, simple and scalable. WEC operates submerged, allowing it to survive stormy seas while causing no visual pollution or posing any collision danger.

CalWave co-founder and CEO Marcus Lehmann co-invented the company's foundational technology during his time as a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Theoretical & Applied Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Marcus was inspired by the “Wave Carpet”, developed by Reza Alam, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, who, in previous research, had identified that energy could be extracted from muddy seabeds. Marcus made it his mission to take the Wave Carpet technology out of the test tank and into the open ocean. Marcus was accepted into the first cohort of Cyclotron Road, a 2-year fellowship and incubator for entrepreneurial scientists working in clean energy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) that allowed the formation of the founding team. 

Timeline

Inventors

Mohammad-Reza Alam, Marcus MKG Lehmann, Mostafa Shakeri