SEAI has secured a formal funding agreement with Australian renewables company Carnegie Wave Energy for a €150,000 project to evaluate potential wave sites for its CETO technology in Ireland and to develop a site-specific conceptual design.
The project, which will be managed through the company’s Irish subsidiary, CETO Wave Energy Ireland, is 50pc funded by the SEAI and 50pc by Carnegie and forms the first phase of detailed design for a potential 5MW commercial demonstration project in Irish waters.
According to Carnegie, the project has now started with the recent appointment of RPS Consulting Engineers to undertake the study. RPS Consulting Engineers, which was previously Kirk McClure Morton, has already worked on a number of wave and tidal-development projects in Europe and North America.
Wave energy and Ireland
“Reaching a formal agreement with SEAI for project funding allows us to begin detailed site assessment and develop the conceptual design of a 5MW commercial demonstration project in Ireland,” said Carnegie’s Dublin-based executive director of European business development, Kieran O’Brien.
Carnegie noted that, to support the development of ocean energy, the Irish Government is providing dedicated grant funding to support the research, development and deployment of ocean energy and has established a feed-in tariff of €220 per megawatt hour for ocean energy.
BordGaIs and OpenHydro tidal farm alliance
Earlier today, Bord Gaís Energy announced it had become an open shareholder in OpenHydro, whose business is the design and manufacture of marine turbines for generating renewable energy from tidal streams. As part of the joint venture, Bord Gaís will invest €1m in OpenHydro with the aim of developing a utility-scale tidal farm off the coast of Ireland.
