From the Oregonian
..."Oregon is a sweet spot for wave energy," said Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader with the Electric Power Research Institute, a Palo Alto, Calif., nonprofit organization that researches energy and the environment.
The state gets good wave action because global winds blow west to east. "As the global winds blow over a long stretch of water, the waves get bigger and bigger and bigger," Bedard said. "The storms off the Sea of Japan and the Gulf of Alaska bring big swells into the Oregon coast."
Oregon also has a good power grid on the coast -- unlike Washington, which also has good waves but comparatively few electric transmission lines to its coast, he said....

...In Oregon, estimates indicate waves could produce a potential of about 14,000 megawatts of power,...

From The Register-Guard

To realize that potential, OSU is working on a new type of generator to convert the motion of waves into electricity. Rather than using hydraulics or pneumatics - the basis of current designs - the prototype is based on a linear magnetic generator that uses what researchers call a "contactless force transmission system" to generate electricity.

What that means is that the buoy can produce electricity without having its main parts in contact, reducing the effects of wear and corrosion that at sea can turn the toughest materials into rusted wrecks.
The buoy basically is a copper wire coil surrounding a shaft made from high-density, rare earth magnets. A cable running to the seafloor holds the shaft approximately in one position, while the outer part of the buoy holding the coil bobs up and down on the waves.

That motion, a magnet moving through the center of a copper coil, generates electricity. Each buoy should produce about 250 kilowatts; four rows of 20 buoys each would extract 20 megawatts of electricity, and a network of 200 buoys would produce enough to power downtown Portland.

Still, that's a lot of buoys, and where to put them remains an open question. Oregon has 300 miles of coastline, but one spot stands out as a natural for what would be the nation's first commercial wave energy park: the Douglas County town of Gardiner.

Ready connection

Gardiner has two things that make it a prime wave energy prospect: an unused electricity substation at the abandoned International Paper mill, and a seafloor pipeline. Three companies already have expressed interest in the site.

The 53-megawatt substation provides a ready-made connection to the electrical grid, and the pipeline could be the conduit for the delivery line that would carry electricity from the buoy park to shore. That means the start-up costs for a commercial wave park would be substantially lower than a site where facilities would be built from scratch.