Myles Gough writing on the Science Alert website has detailed the launch of Australian company Carnegie Wave Energy’s wave power generating project where energy is continuously produced and the device can also supply zero-emission desalinated water. 

The boast is that this is a world’s first grid-connected wave power station and it is already activated off the coast of Western Australia (WA).

After more than a decade of testing it was switched on to start a pilot project that began feeding wave-generated electricity into a local WA grid. This is the first array of wave power generators to be connected to an electricity grid in Australia and worldwide,” the accompanying blurb reported Ivor Frischknecht, CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, saying. The Agency has provided $13 million of the $32 million project.

The company’s technology, termed CETO after the Greek goddess of the sea, converts ocean swell into zero-emission renewable power and zero-emission desalinated freshwater. The company says its system is different from other wave energy devices as it operates under water where it is safer from storms and corrosion and not visible from the shore.

The round, submerged buoys are tethered to seabed pump units, which are installed at a depth of between 25 and 50 metres. Waves hitting the buoys drive the pumps, which push pressurised seawater through a pipe beneath the ocean floor to an onshore hydroelectric power station. There, the high-pressure water drives a turbine and generates electricity.

“The high-pressure water can also be used to supply a reverse osmosis desalination plant, replacing or reducing reliance on greenhouse gas-emitting, electrically-driven pumps usually required for such plants,” the company states on its website. So far, only two of the project’s three buoys have been installed.

“During the testing phase, the first 240kW peak capacity CETO 5 wave unit operated successfully for more than 2,000 hours,” Ivor Frischknecht, CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has stated. The company’s larger CETO 6 units, which are under development are expected to have four times the power generating capacity.

Carnegie chief executive Michael Ottaviano told The West Australian the project could pave the way for much bigger versions capable of powering towns.

“The challenge from here on is really about scale and cost,” Carnegie chief executive Michael Ottaviano told The West Australian. ”We need to make the technology bigger, we need to make our projects bigger because that’s what allows you to get your costs down.“

Original story at:
http://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-first-grid-connected-wave-power-station-switched-on-in-australia