
What if I told you we could tap into a renewable energy source that doesn’t have the intermittency concerns limiting solar and wind power and we could use it to supply carbon-free electricity to nearly half of earth’s population without needing to construct lots of long, expensive transmission lines?
Welcome to the wonderful world of wave power.
“It makes sense,” offered Eco Wave Power founder and CEO Inna Braverman when asked to provide a short sales pitch for this almost magical-sounding resource.
Wave power is as simple as its name suggests- creating electricity by harnessing the motion of the ocean (or other bodies of water). It’s the least intermittent renewable energy source, generating in suitable locations around the clock, regardless of whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Braverman says it’s the most dense type, too, 830 times the density of air.
“So you can produce much larger amounts of power with much smaller, thus cheaper, devices,” she explained.
And since roughly 40% of people live in coastal areas, widespread adoption of wave power could save us untold billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on transmission lines to carry electricity where it needs to be. The T&D equivalent of a farm-to-table restaurant, if you will.
Braverman wants to share the potential of wave power with the world, and she’s well on her way. Eco Wave Power (EWP) recently celebrated the major milestone of becoming the first to connect sea power tech to Israel’s grid, and soon the United States will welcome its first wave power installation in the Port of Los Angeles.
Braverman founded Eco Wave Power at the age of 24, back when most of us were simply trying to find respite from hearing “We Are Young” everywhere we went, and has since turned an idea into a company listed on the NASDAQ (WAVE). Actualizing the ocean’s potential has become her life’s passion, but the “Queen of the Waves” wasn’t initially planning on charting a course through such uncertain waters.
In fact, Inna Braverman almost never got a chance to see the ocean at all.
A second shot at life
Inna Braverman was born in Ukraine on April 11, 1986, 15 days before the Chernobyl disaster.
“I was one of the babies that got hurt from the negative effects of the explosion,” she shared.
Not just hurt. Respiratory arrest and clinical death. No breathing, no pulse. Inna’s mother Ludmilla, a nurse, discovered her daughter turning blue in her crib.
“The baby is dead! The baby is dead!” she ran out of the room shouting. In the horror of the moment, Ludmilla temporarily forgot her profession.
“You’re a nurse. Do something!” her husband implored.
From the stories Inna has been told, Ludmilla lept into action at that moment, giving her newborn mouth-to-mouth and resuscitating her.
“Obviously I don’t remember any of it,” Braverman leveled. But she doesn’t have to. Her harrowing brush with the reaper became a tale told at nearly every family gathering.
“Everybody would tell me that it’s so cool that I got a second chance in life, and I should really do something with it,” Inna recalled.
Her family moved to Israel after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, but relocating didn’t necessarily make it any easier for Inna to “do something” with the cosmic gift she’d been granted. She grew up in a small town called Acre (Akko), an ancient port city and one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on the planet. While stunning, it’s not exactly rife with job opportunities.
How do you make good when you have no money? When you have no connections? When you have nothing to fall back on? Inna Braverman bet on herself.
Discovering her game-changer
Education, Inna decided, would be her ticket to someplace else. She studied political science at Haifa University with an admirable mission in mind.
“I thought I would be this great politician that would make an impact on the world and make peace in the Middle East,” recollected Braverman. “It didn’t work out that way.”
“There was no lineup of politicians waiting to hire a young lady straight from university,” she lamented. “Very surprising, by the way, and a big loss. But, society.”
She took a job in Tel Aviv as an English-Hebrew translator at a renewable energy company, opening up an entirely new world. Solar and wind couldn’t keep her attention, though. Those technologies had been (more or less) fully developed for decades, leaving little room for the sort of game-changing innovation worthy of one’s efforts after cheating death. But wave power?
“That’s a game changer,” she realized. “That’s my mission with my second chance in life.”
How it works
Eco Wave Power harnesses hydraulic energy through floaters installed nearshore on existing structures like breakwaters, piers, and jetties. The floaters bob up and down with the natural wave movement, creating pressure that drives a hydro motor and a generator. The system’s interconnection point is housed inside a standard shipping container alongside the generator and an inverter to ensure the stable transmission of clean electricity to the grid. A smart automation system controls the power station’s storm-protection mechanism and oversees its operation.
Only the system’s floaters enter the water, and they aren’t tethered to any electrical lines, making for a pretty eco-friendly and simple setup. Notably, there’s no need to hassle with running underwater transmission lines, which are necessary to support offshore wind generation. Not only are such lines expensive, but their construction often takes a long time because of the mandated environmental reviews that go along with putting stuff in the ocean.
“That makes our technology much simpler and easier to connect to the grid,” surveyed Braverman.
And the cherry on top: Breakwaters are often owned by ports, and ports are large consumers of electricity, meaning there’s likely to be a substation somewhere nearby.
“When you’re that close to the grid interconnection point, it’s very easy and cost-efficient to connect,” Eco Wave Power’s CEO has discovered.
However, the technology is still novel enough that there isn’t a strong regulatory or legal framework to support it, leading to some uncertainty for interested adopters.
“That’s really a big show stopper because if you come into a country, no matter how much they want it and how much you’re willing to build it, if there’s no regulation, it’s very hard to make that happen,” attested Braverman. “A coastal city can approach Eco Wave Power for a project and when we ask what kind of licenses they need, they say they don’t know.”
She isn’t put off by that, though. Wind and solar, now “fully grown” technologies, as she calls them, powered through plenty of growing pains whilst establishing foundations for regulation. Like anything else, the more you do it, the easier it gets. And some people just need to see to believe.
Israel’s first grid-connected wave power installation
Eco Wave Power and EDF Renewables IL made history in August 2023 with their Jaffa Port installation, sending the first power from a wave energy project to Israel’s grid.
“It’s everything that we wanted and hoped for,” recalled Braverman, who attended the project’s inauguration in December 2024 alongside Israeli Ministers and the Mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. “It was a very emotional and special moment for me.”
EDF Renewables IL and the Israeli Energy Ministry co-funded the endeavor as a “pioneering technology” integral to Israel’s energy security. The wave energy system consists of 10 floaters installed along the Port of Jaffa’s existing breakwater with a total capacity of 100 kilowatts (kW). Each floater connects directly to Eco Wave Power’s land-based energy conversion unit. The Israeli National Electric Company is purchasing all of the clean energy produced by the project under the terms of a power purchase agreement (PPA).
“I think you are a shining example of how ambitious renewable energy goals can be achieved,” Idit Silman, Israel’s Minister of Environmental Protection told Eco Wave Power’s founder. “There’s nothing greener than this. I want to wish you great success. We would be delighted to see this green economy grow and develop, and we will continue to support you.”
In addition to supplying clean energy, the so-called EWP-EDF One power station will serve as a public education center. Eco Wave Power received a GREENinMED grant from the European Union which will fund the creation and installation of a “unique educational experience” in the Port of Jaffa.
A pilot based on Eco Wave Power’s Israeli technology has also been implemented on Gaza’s coastline.
“Even regions that do not maintain formal relations with Israel still need and use Israeli innovations,” Inna Braverman asserted. “In fact, since the war started, Eco Wave Power has been approached by national electric companies and engineers in countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar to explore the potential of this technology. It’s a powerful reminder that solutions to global challenges can unite us, offering sustainable benefits beyond politics and borders.”
Next stop: Surfin’ USA
Wave power’s next stop is along American shores. The Port of Los Angeles has a large external breakwater, which Eco Wave Power saw as ripe for a power station as large as 60 MW.
“It wasn’t being used for anything,” noted Braverman.
When approached, the Port of LA was on board (it is California, after all), since the state is trying to decarbonize its ports. Its people didn’t know a lick about wave power or its potential, but they knew a tenant who did- AltaSea, a unique public-private ocean institute. EWP shipped a pilot station to serve as a stationary display on the organization’s lot, and it attracted positive attention from the media and business partners.
In November 2024, Eco Wave Power received the final Nationwide Permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a 100-kW station on AltaSea’s premises in the Port of Los Angeles. The permit authorizes EWP to install eight wave energy floaters on the piles of an existing concrete wharf structure, which will connect to an energy conversion unit comprised of two 20-foot shipping containers on the wharf deck.
“Every time I open a continent, it’s a good step toward commercialization,” Braverman acknowledged. “I understand I’m opening doors. I’m preaching in California but at the same time I’m dreaming about Hawaii and New Jersey.”
Braverman hopes other municipalities follow the innovative example AltaSea and the Port of LA devised to enable harnessing wave power. EWP and partner Shell MRE plan to complete the installation by the end of Q1 2025.
Then it’s on to the next wave of wave power projects.
Riding the next big wave
In the upcoming months, Eco Wave Power will launch its first project in Asia on the East Coast of Taiwan in collaboration with Lian Tat and I-Ke, which will finance the 100 kW pilot by buying a turnkey conversion unit from EWP.
Then attention shifts to Portugal, where Eco Wave Power is developing its first megawatt-scale project in the city of Porto. Braverman hopes to have it up and running in 2026.
“It will get faster,” EWP’s founder told Factor This. “Before, we were executing one project at a time. Right now we’re executing three projects at a time. Of course, it’s not fast enough for me. I want everything here now.”
In addition to being slowed by immature or nonexistent regulatory frameworks, Braverman has been frustrated by a lack of available debt financing for wave power projects. Debt financing is commonly used to build large-scale wind and solar projects, but because EWP’s technology is so new, lenders want to see 12 to 24 months of results of the first commercial station in Portugal before opening their checkbooks.
Eco Wave Power and Shell have conducted feasibility studies showing dozens of locations along U.S. coastlines where wave power is strong enough to hit the threshold considering an installation. The companies believe more than 100 MW of power is feasible in Brookings, Oregon, and in the Harbor of Los Angeles.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates wave energy can produce nearly two-thirds of the power the United States needs. In 2024, renewables accounted for about 18% of America’s electricity generation supply.
EWP says its project pipeline exceeds 400 MW. Not exactly two-thirds of anyone’s demand, but Inna Braverman is just getting started, and she’s yet to tire of the door-to-door saleswoman approach she’s had to take to spread the gospel of wave power.
“For me, it’s exciting. It’s new every time,” she smiled.
These days EWP’s CEO spends most of her time split between Israel and the United States. Eco Wave Power is opening sales offices in Miami, Florida next month. Israel will remain the company’s innovation and engineering hub.
“That’s what we’re good at,” joked Braverman, “and U.S. people are good at sales. It’s a good combination of both!”
Braverman isn’t so bad at sales herself. She’s a polyglot, speaking English, Hebrew, and Russian with a little Spanish and Ukrainian.
“I’m willing to talk in every language,” she said.
In Slavic, “Inna” means “strong water.” So far, it has proven to be a fitting moniker.
“I know that I’m in the right industry,” Braverman confirmed. “It’s my passion.”