Co-ordinated by the Irish company OceanEnergy, the WEDUSEA project is a collaboration between 14 partners, spanning industry and academia from across the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain.
The project is co-funded by the EU Horizon Europe Programme and Innovate UK.
As with all other Horizon Europe projects, WEDUSEA has undergone a comprehensive independent review by EU appointed external experts following its initial project design period to ensure the technical designs and all plans, budgets and protocols can be approved.
The WEDUSEA project will demonstrate a grid connected 1MW OE35 floating wave energy converter at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) wave energy test site at Billia Croo in Orkney, Scotland. A technical and environmental demonstration will happen over a two-year period in Atlantic wave conditions.
OceanEnergy has developed the OE35, which the company said is the world’s largest capacity floating wave energy device.
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Floating on the ocean’s surface, the device incorporates a trapped air volume, with the lower part open to the sea. Wave pressures at the submerged opening cause the water to oscillate and drive the trapped air through a turbine to generate electricity. Electricity generated will be exported to the UK grid via EMEC’s subsea cables.
In a statement, Professor Tony Lewis, chief technical officer at OceanEnergy, said: “Wave energy is the world’s most valuable renewable resource with around 30TWh of potential annual production waiting to be harnessed. That’s almost ten times Europe’s annual electricity consumption.
“However, this potential has yet to be fully realised. The project will demonstrate that wave technology is on a cost reduction trajectory and will thus be a stepping stone to larger commercial array scale up and further industrialisation. We predict that the natural energy of the world’s oceans will one day supply much of the grid.”
Made up of three phases, the WEDUSEA project will begin with the initial phase design and build of a device suited to the ocean conditions at EMEC’s Billia Croo wave energy test site.
This will be followed by a two-year demonstration at the site. The final phase will be commercialisation and dissemination which sees the capitalisation and exploitation of the results.
The wave converter build starts in the second half of 2024 and the demonstration at EMEC is expected to begin in June 2025.
Comment: Hinkley Point C must deploy mandated protections for fish
Yes. But if the fish are only the fry (@ a guess 1cm long rather than 20cm) then the volume or mass would be 4 orders of magnitude lower at about 9...