Abstract
Wave energy is a kind of new marine renewable energy with broad development prospects. Many countries have launched aggressive public policies to promote the use of wave-energy technology. In this paper, 729 wave-energy policy documents were visually analyzed by Citespace software, and 31 Chinese wave-energy policy documents were visually analyzed by Nvivo software. It was found that, on the one hand, wave-energy policy research presents an upward trend. Compared with foreign wave-energy policy research, the research foundation of China’s wave-energy policy is weak, the research is not in-depth enough, and the research enthusiasm is not high. On the other hand, China’s wave-energy policy is gradually improving, showing a development trend from extensive to detailed, with diversified policy tools and specific policy objectives, although there is still room for improvement.