ADVANCING WAVE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES THROUGH OPEN WATER TESTING AT PACWAVE DEHLSEN WILL PRODUCE THE FINAL DESIGN OF THEIR WAVE ENERGY CONVERTER - “CENTIPOD 1P6” FOR MANUFACTURING AND DEPLOYMENT AT PACWAVE. THE “CENTIPOD 1P6” (C1P6) IS A POINT ABSORBER WAVE ENERGY CONVERTER (WEC) COMPRISED OF A SINGLE 6M DIAMETER, SURFACE PIERCING, HEAVING PRIME MOVER “POD”, ATTACHED TO A LINEAR ACTING POWER TAKE-OFF (PTO) WITHIN A HOUSING SPAR AND A SUBMERGED, STABLE REFERENCE BUOYANCY “BACKBONE”, MOORED WITH PRE-TENSIONED LINES. IN THIS MANNER THE DEVICE IS INTERNALLY SELF-REACTING BUT ALSO GROUND REFERENCED, TO AN EXTENT. A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE WEC IS UTILIZING A LIGHT-WEIGHT PRIME MOVER AND ACTIVE CONTROL TO ACHIEVE TUNING TO THE INCIDENT SEASTATES AND HIGHLY EFFICIENT WAVE POWER CONVERSION. THIS IS VIEWED AS BEING THE MOST COST-EFFECTIVE ROUTE FOR WAVE POWER EXTRACTION (COMPARE WITH THE LARGE MASS PRIME MOVERS REQUIRED FOR MORE PASSIVE TUNING AND THE ENSUING HIGH CAPITAL COSTS AND IMPEDIMENT TO MARINE OPERATIONS, MOORING SYSTEM FORCES AND SO ON) AND GIVES THE HIGHEST PROBABILITY OF MINIMIZING SYSTEM LEVELIZED COST OF ENERGY.