Irish wave energy developer OceanEnergy has announced that it will showcase its OE35 floating wave energy converter at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland. The company intends to conduct a two-year demonstration of the OE35 at EMEC's Billia Croo wave energy test site from 2024. The 1MW OE35 wave energy converter floats on the ocean's surface, with the lower part of the machine open to the sea. The wave energy generated by the device will be used to produce electricity that will be fed into the UK grid via EMEC's subsea cable and onshore substation.
The OE35 uses well-proven ship-building techniques and has only one moving part above sea level, which increases its survivability, reliability, and availability, OceanEnergy said. The company will receive support from EMEC, which will undertake technical inspection and performance assessment to confirm that the OE35 and its moorings meet reliability, survivability, and performance targets and comply with IEC international standards.
The demonstration is supported by the WEDUSEA project, which is co-funded by the EU Horizon Europe Programme and Innovate UK. The project partners will conduct a series of field campaigns, including underwater and airborne acoustics, biophysical assessments of wave dynamics, fish aggregation, and seabird analysis, to evaluate the potential interactions between local species and the technology's operation.
Prof Tony Lewis, Chief Technical Officer at OceanEnergy, said that the demonstration would provide key metrics and operational experience for the commercial deployment of the OE technology. Carly Tait, Project Manager at EMEC for WEDUSEA, said that EMEC would collect valuable data on the device's performance during the demonstration. This data would provide third-party assurance on the power performance of the device and reduce uncertainty around its environmental impact.
OceanEnergy will join EMEC's 20th-anniversary exhibition at the All-Energy conference in Glasgow in May 2023, where a model of the OE35 device will be displayed. The signing of the berth agreement with EMEC is a significant milestone in the project's commercialisation, said Lewis.
