Australia’s first wave energy array sets world record

Australian technology backed by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is once again leading the pack.

The Perth-based Carnegie Wave Energy Project has completed 14,000 cumulative operating hours – the highest ever recorded for the global wave energy industry.

For the past 12 months, the CETO 5 project has used an array of three off-shore wave power generators to provide clean electricity and potable desalinated water to Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling, on Garden Island in Western Australia.

Supported with $13.1 million of funding from ARENA, this now complete $40 million project was the first array of wave power generators to be connected to an electricity grid, worldwide.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the project has the potential to not only be part of Australia’s future energy solutions in remote and on-grid communities, but also an exportable global solution.

“CETO 5 project is a prime example of how, with the right stewardship and support, improvements can be made on previous iterations of a technology, to progress it along the innovation chain towards commercialisation,” he said.

“ARENA is proud to help local companies, like Carnegie, develop new renewable energy solutions that have the potential to change the way the world generates electricity. We do this by providing Australian innovators with the support they need during the critical RD&D period, when patient funding is essential.”

“The CETO 5 project demonstrates what this support can do for a technology’s development: assisting Carnegie to propel its technology’s development from an independently assessed Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of five, to a seven out of nine, in just three short years.”

TRL is an internationally accepted measurement system used to assess the maturity level of a developing technology.

A final report for the CETO 5 project will be publicly available from July.

 

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