wave energy to be commercialised

An article appearing on the energy review website today. www.energyreview.net

No announcement made as of yet by Carnegie or other partners


Pioneers ride renewables wave

Francine Pennington
Friday, April 07, 2006

WAVE energy technology developer Seapower Pacific claims trials from its CETO generator, on the seabed off Fremantle, Western Australia, have been so successful, the company aims to bring the technology to the marketplace within the next few months.



The CETO Wave Energy Generator after being positioned on the sea floor off Fremantle, WA.


Seapower project manager Mike Parfitt told EnergyReview.net he expected that smaller versions of the CETO prototype, which can generate up to 100kW of electricity, would be made available for commercial sale by September.

In early May last year, Seapower sank the CETO wave energy generator off Fremantle. It was installed on the seafloor to harness and convert energy from ocean waves into electricity and produce desalinated water as a by-product.

Unlike other methods, which pipe seawater ashore before harnessing its power and losing substantial amounts of energy in the process, CETO captures the power of the water onsite. As waves move over the top of the unit, they press down on a disc that transmits the force to pumps inside, which deliver the pressurised water to the shore.

CETO's other main advantage comes from its location on the seabed. Most other methods of wave-powered electricity generation involve placing devices on the surface of the saw, where they are exposed to the damaging effects of stormy weather and could pose a threat to ships.

Parfitt said trials would continue for another month, wrapping up over 25 years of research.

"The main part of our technology was proving the pump works – and we've achieved that," he said.

"All that's left is to install and commission the electrical generation system and reverse osmosis unit and we're in business."

Seapower's wave energy generators will initially be targeted at the overseas market, according to Parfitt.

"In Europe and the UK especially, there are bigger incentives for companies to get into renewable energy," he said.

"We believe the demand is there for a product such as ours and I expect we'll receive more interest once we start marketing it. We've kept a fairly low profile up until now because we wanted to ensure the technology actually worked."

CETO inventor Alan Burns has said the fully submerged generators could also be used in areas of natural beauty, where offshore wind turbines or surface-level wave convertors would be considered eyesores.

He added that wind-generated waves off the WA coast have a very high concentration of energy.

Indeed, with a coastline measuring more than 30,000km, Australia is well placed to exploit potential of emerging wave power and tidal technologies, according to another industry pioneer, Energetech.