Patent ID: 7735317

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; a reservoir 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; wherein at least one of the plurality of buoyancy pumps comprises: an upper piston slideably disposed within an upper piston chamber and operably connected to the buoyancy block, the upper piston being reciprocally moveable in a first direction and a second direction in response to the reciprocal movement of the buoyancy block; a lower piston slideably disposed within a lower piston chamber and operably connected to the buoyancy block, the lower piston being reciprocally moveable in the first direction and the second direction in response to the reciprocal movement of the buoyancy block; a transfer pipe to provide fluid communication between the lower piston chamber and the upper piston chamber; wherein the lower piston moves in the first direction to draw the operating fluid into the lower piston chamber and moves in the second direction to drive the operating fluid out of the lower piston chamber and into the transfer pipe; and wherein the upper piston chamber is operable to receive the operating fluid from the transfer pipe during movement of the upper piston in the second direction, the upper piston moving in the first direction to drive the operating fluid out of the upper piston chamber.