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What Are Wave Farms?

World's First Wave Park

The world's first commercial wave farm opened in 2008 at the Aguçadora Wave Park near Póvoa de Varzim in Portugal. It uses three Pelamis P-750 machines with a total installed capacity of 2.25MW. A second phase of the project is now planned to increase the installed capacity to 21MW using a further 25 Pelamis machines.

Funding for a 3MW wave farm in Scotland was announced on February 20, 2007 by the Scottish Executive, at a cost of over 4 million pounds, as part of a £13 million funding packages for marine power in Scotland. The farm will be the world's largest with a capacity of 3MW generated by four Pelamis machines.

Funding has also been announced for the development of a Wave hub off the north coast of Cornwall, England. The Wave hub will act as giant extension cable, allowing arrays of wave energy generating devices to be connected to the electricity grid. The Wave hub will initially allow 20MW of capacity to be connected with potential expansion to 40MW. Four device manufacturers have so far expressed interest in connecting to the Wave hub.

The scientists have calculated that wave energy gathered at Wave Hub will be enough to power up to 7,500 households. Savings that the Cornwall wave power generator will bring are significant: about 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide in the next 25 years.

A CETO wave farm of the coast of Western Australia has been operating to prove commercial viability and after preliminary environmental approval is poised for further development. One benefit of CETO is that the buoys that capture the wave motion are submersed and therefore, are not a visual pollutant. Furthermore, the underwater deployment makes them less prone to storm damage.

 

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