In Scotland, energy is produced with the waves of the sea

A 19.6 million euro initiative to finance the production of clean energy by exploiting the movements of the sea waves; a big step forward for a booming sector. The project, called WEDUSEAwill be coordinated by the Irish company OceanEnergy supported by Enterprise Ireland, the government development agency, and will involve 14 partners from academia and industry, with funding from Innovate UK and from the program Horizon Europe of European Union. The launch will take place at the International Ocean Energy Conference, to be held in San Sebastian, Spain.

The floating device

OceanEnergy has developed OE35, a system called “the world’s largest capacity floating wave energy device”. The capacity it refers to is the amount of electricity a generator is capable of producing when running at full capacity. The bottom of the OE35 is open to the waves. As waves pass through this submerged opening, they oscillate and push trapped air through a turbine. The generated energy can then be exported from the OE35 to the grid.

According to the European Center for Marine Energy, WEDUSEA will last four years and its initial phase will focus on designing a 1 megawatt version of the OE35. This will be followed by a two-year trial with grid connection at a wave energy test site located at the European Marine Energy Center in Orkney, Scotland. Orkney is an archipelago located in the waters north of mainland Scotland. L’EMEC based there, it has been an important center for the development of wave and tidal energy since its inception in 2003. After that the third phase of the project will concern commercialization. According to the EMEC, the main objective is to “use this technology to build a 20 MW pilot plant”.

“The innovative actions undertaken in this program aim to improve the efficiency, reliability, scalability and sustainability of wave energy technology and reduce its LCOE by more than 30%,” he said. Myles Hewardproject manager at EMEC – this will help reduce the risk of investing in wave energy. “LCOE refers to the leveled cost of energy, or” the measure of the life costs of a device divided by production of energy “. Tony LewisOceanEnergy technical manager said he was enthusiastic about WEDUSEA’s prospects. He said the project “will demonstrate how wave technology is progressively reducing its costs, thus becoming a stepping stone for the development of larger commercial carriers and further industrialization.” “We anticipate that the natural energy of the world’s oceans will someday provide much of the electricity grid,” Lewis went on to say.

Wave motion production

Despite the enthusiasm for the potential of marine energy, the footprint of projects based on wave motion and tides, at the moment, however, remains very small compared to other renewable sources. According to data published in March 2022, Ocean Energy Europe stated that 2.2 MW of tidal energy capacity were installed in Europe in 2021, compared to the meager 260 kilowatts in 2020. As for wave energy. , 681 kW were installed which, according to OEE, tripled in 2022.

Globally, however, 1.38 MW of wave energy went into operation in 2021, while 3.12 MW of tidal current capacity was installed. By comparison, Europe installed 17.4 gigawatts of wind capacity in 2021, according to data from the industrial body WindEurope.