$11 million funding for Carnegie Wave Energy project

Wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy has received an Australian Government grant to support the company’s new, $46 million wave power project.

The $11 million in funding will be provided by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s (ARENA) Emerging Renewables Program. In addition, the company is receiving a five-year, $20 million loan facility from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Carnegie has confirmed Garden Island, off the coast of Western Australia, as the location of its CETO 6 Project. Three CETO 6 units will be deployed off Garden Island and connected to the Western Australian electricity grid. Electricity generated from the project will be sold to the Australian Department of Defence under Carnegie’s existing power supply agreement for use at HMAS Stirling, Australia’s largest naval base, which is located on the island.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the funding will help Carnegie progress towards commercialisation of its CETO technology, which is expected to deliver wave energy at “approximately half the cost of CETO 5”.

“CETO 6 also allows for offshore power generation, which could enable additional applications for the technology operating further from shore, in deep water,” he added.

CETO units are large, fully submerged buoys, tethered to the ocean floor and designed to harness energy from the ocean’s waves. A single CETO 6 unit has a target power capacity of 1 MW, some four times that of the current CETO 5 generation. The project will thus be up to 3 MW in capacity.

“This increased generation capacity, combined with improved efficiency, delivers reduced power costs and brings the technology closer to commercialisation,” Frischknecht said.

“CETO 6 builds on knowledge gained from previous generations of the technology and aims to be cost competitive with fossil fuels in certain markets when deployed in large-scale projects.”

Meanwhile, Carnegie continues to focus on the commissioning and operation of its Perth Wave Energy Project, utilising CETO 5 technology. The project has progressed up to the point of commissioning and an update will be released shortly.