Patent ID: 7257946

Claim:
A system for generating electricity, comprising: a plurality of buoyancy pumps located in a body of water, each buoyancy pump having a buoyancy block operable to reciprocally move in response to wave action to pump an operating fluid using the energy of waves within the body of water, each buoyancy pump being individually anchored to a floor beneath the body of water, each buoyancy block being sized such that a diameter of the buoyancy block is no less than about one-sixth a wavelength of an average wave for a region in which the buoyancy pump is operated, each buoyancy block being sized such that the diameter of the buoyancy block is no greater than about the wavelength of the average wave; a reservoir disposed on shore adjacent to the body of water and fluidly connected to at least two of the buoyancy pumps to aggregate the operating fluid from the two buoyancy pumps; and a turbine operable to receive the operating fluid from the reservoir and convert at least a portion of a kinetic energy of the operating fluid into electrical energy.