Spain Expands Renewables With Wave-Powered Electricity Plant

Waves constantly thrash the fishing village of Mutriku on Spain’s northern coast. Records from the 13th century describe the dangerous surf and shipwrecks here. Until recently, water occasionally hurled debris through windows of homes, before the local government built a cement breakwater to shelter the harbor.

Now, this town’s few thousand residents have a small beach that’s protected from raucous waves that roll in off the Bay of Biscay. They can stroll down a pier and out over the breakwater. And hidden underneath their feet, Spanish scientists like Gloria Etxebarria are busy generating electricity from these powerful waves.

“The government decided to build a breakwater to protect the harbor of Mutriku. And so making use of that decision, we decided to put there our wave energy plant,” Etxebarria says.