The world’s first commercial-scale wave energy array that is connected to the grid has completed its first year of operations.
Carnegie Wave Energy’s CETO 5 Perth Project’s achievement of its final milestone opens up the next development phase of Carnegie’s CETO 6 Project.
Carnegie has submitted all its grant milestone invoices to the Western Australia Government’s Low Emissions Energy Development (LEED) fund and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) – meeting all the requirements of its LEED funding agreement and receiving 100 per cent of its grant payments from the Western Australia Government.
It is also set to receive $955,043 from ARENA for submitting the final milestone invoices for the CETO 5 Perth Project. Additionally, the wave energy developer said it had received a $200,000 CETO 6 milestone payment from ARENA for the completion of the CETO 6 concept design milestone.
ARENA Chief Executive Ivor Frischknecht said the successful operation was a huge achievement and further cemented Australia’s position as a leader in renewable wave power.
“It demonstrates Carnegie is well placed to continue progressing its innovative technology through the development of its next generation CETO 6 unit.
“This learning will be useful for the further development and operation of the CETO 6 wave power unit, along with other Carnegie projects and Australia’s wave energy industry more broadly.”
Carnegie Wave Energy had an eventful 2015. Almost a year ago, it launched its revolutionary Perth Wave Energy project. In July, it won an Australian Research Council grant to research and develop more efficient anchoring systems and built on this in August by winning a Scottish Government grant for the development of a wave energy power conversion system.
The CETO 6 unit has a targeted 1 MW power capacity – four times that of the current CETO 5 generation being used in the Perth Project. According to Carnegie, the CETO 6 unit will have superior efficiency, lower capital and lower maintenance costs than any CETO product generation developed to date.
The CETO 6 Project is supported by $11 million funding from ARENA’s Emerging Renewables Program and a five-year $21 million loan facility from the Commonwealth Bank.
The wave energy generated by the project will be sold to the Australian Department of Defence at Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling, on Garden Island in Western Australia.