Australian wave power company Carnegie Clean Energy is expressing interest in building the country's first commercial scale wave power plant on the south coast of Western Australia - Carnegie eyes 100MW wave farm in Albany if Labor wins W.A. poll.

Perth-based Carnegie Clean Energy says it will consider a 20MW wave farm off the cost of Albany in West Australia if Labor wins the state poll and delivers on a commitment to provide $19.5 million of funding. Carnegie, which is currently preparing its first full-size wave farm off the coast of Fremantle, helping to supply Garden Island naval base with a mixture of wave and solar energy and battery storage, says the Albany plant could be upgraded to 100MW. ...

Carnegie CEO Michael Ottaviano said the Albany wave farm would be an opportunity to tap into a highly consistent renewable resource; delivering “24/7 clean power” into the electrical grid at a time where recognition of the importance of reliable, clean energy in Australia has never been higher. “Albany has one the most consistent wave energy resources in the world, experiencing greater than 1m swell 99.7 per cent of the time,” he said in a statement.

RNE has an article on the rapidly maturing microgrid market combining solar panels and energy storage - Carnegie, Lendlease join forces to target “massive” microgrid market.

Both companies already have considerable skin in the microgrid game, including together, on the community-level battery storage pilot kicked off last year in the northern suburbs of Perth – a sustainable community development at Alkimos Beach that combines 1.1MWh of lithium-ion battery storage with more than 100 rooftop solar homes, and is testing different electricity tariff options and retail models.

RNE has an article on moves to start using vanadium flow batteries in energy storage projects in Australia - Carnegie teams with Sumitomo for grid-scale vanadium flow battery storage.

Carnegie Wave Energy’s 100 per cent owned subsidiary, Energy Made Clean, is set to develop and demonstrate a commercial-scale solar and battery storage plant in Australia, after entering into a joint venture targeting Australia’s vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery market.

As we have noted on RE before, vanadium redox flow batteries are tipped to be one of the key players in the booming global energy storage market, as more and more renewable energy sources are brought onto grids around the world. The batteries are considered uniquely suited to on- and off-grid energy storage applications due to their scalability and long asset lives, with deep and very high cycling capability.

Australia, as well as being a key market for battery storage uptake, has been noted for its potential to become a top global producer of vanadium – a metal found in a range of mineral deposits.

Inhabitat reports that Perth based wave energy company is deploying a pilot plant at the UK "wave hub" in Cornwall - The UK’s first wave energy plant will produce enough energy for 6,000 homes.

Australia-based company Carnegie Wave Energy (CWE) will bring their wave power and desalination technology to Wave Hub in Cornwall, England. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) granted 9.6 million pounds (around $11.8 million) to CWE for the first phase of their Wave Hub project. Ultimately CWE aims to install enough of their wave power converter devices to generate 15 megawatts (MW) of clean energy at Wave Hub.

ReNew Economy reports that Australian wave power Carnegie Energy is to test it's CETO technology at the UK wave hub - Carnegie to test CETO 6 at world-leading wave energy hub.

ASX-listed wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy has won a berth at the world’s largest purpose built wave energy demonstration facility in the south west England, to test its CETO 6 commercial-scale technology.

The berth – and the generous tariff being paid for a demonstration plant – means that Carnegie could have two full scale projects underway with the latest version of its technology. This comes after the Clean Energy Finance Corporation allocated a $20 million loan facility if it built a similar plant in Australia. However, the UK deal provides Carnegie with a ready-made, grid-connected berth at the “Wave Hub” in Cornwall, to deploy and test an array of CETO 6 Units in open water conditions.

Weighing in at 1MW, the CETO 6 array will have a power capacity some four times that of the current CETO 5 generation being deployed in a world first 3 unit array in Carnegie’s Perth Project in Western Australia.

RNE also has a report on the demise of wave power company Oceanlinx - Wave energy company Oceanlinx goes into receivership.

Australia’s Oceanlinx, whose home-grown, commercial-scale wave energy converter technology was unveiled with some fanfare last October, has been placed in receivership after the Sydney-based company hit troubled waters in February.

Rahul Goyal, one of two receivers appointed to the case from KordaMentha, said the company had “suffered financially” after an incident at sea several weeks ago delayed the final installation of its 1MW GreenWave wave energy converter – billed, at the time, as the world’s first such machine to be deployed.

The commercial-scale unit was damaged en route to its destination of Port MacDonnell, in the south-east of South Australia. This caused delays in funding, said Goyal, which was dependent on meeting installation deadlines.

Oceanlinx’s plan had been to install the 24m by 21m, 3,000 tonne unit 3km offshore and transfer the electricity it generated to the grid via a subsea cable. Once operational, the 1MW turbine was expected to produce enough electricity to power 1000 homes. Instead, the commercial-scale unit, which sits on a base of prefabricated reinforced concrete, was towed into shallow waters at Carrickalinga, where it remains.

Formed more than 15 years ago, Oceanlinx was a promising player in Australia’s ocean energy sector, having a number of wave power prototypes, including three units off the NSW coast, and had plans to expand to North America, Asia and Europe.

RNE has an update on wave power company Carnegie Wave Energy - Carnegie Wave raises funds to fast-track CETO 6.

ASX-listed ocean energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy Limited has completed a capital raising of $4 million, part of which will go towards fast-tracking the design of its CETO 6 project – the WA-based company’s next generation CETO unit, which is expected to have at least twice the capacity of the CETO 5 unit. Carnegie’s CETO 5 is being manufactured for the Perth Wave Energy Project, which once completed will be Australia’s first commercial-scale CETO grid-connected wave energy system.

The Climate Spectator reports that wave power company Carnegie Wave Energy has delivered its first CETO units to Reunion island - Wave Power.

Perth-based Carnegie Wave Energy has delivered the first of its new generation CETO 4 units to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion in what it expects will be the first step towards the establishment of a 15MW facility there. The CETO 4 unit, an upgraded version of the CETO 3 unit that has been tested off Fremantle, was delivered to Reunion by French naval defence logisitics group DCNS.

The unit will be deployed during the coming summer, and if successful wlll be followed by a grid-connected 2MW project, and a further expansion to 15MW. The project is being supported by the French government, which is providing two thirds of the funding through grants, and also a marine energy feed-in-tariff equivalent to Eur22c/kWh.

Carnegie CEO Michael Ottaviano said the new unit would test new design ideas, and also a different wave climate. The project was the first to be jointly conducted with French energy giant EDF, as well as DCNS. Carnegie will receive a licensing fee from EDF for the deployment of any further projects in Reunion and the northern hemisphere.

The Climate Spectator reports that Australian wave power company Carnegie Wave Energy has successfully completed tests of its demonstration project near Perth - Carnegie tests go to plan.

Carnegie Wave Energy says the performance of its commercial scale CETO 3 wave energy unit has met expectations and it will now have the results verified by UK engineering company Frazer-Nash. Carnegie said the unit has operated in a range of wave heights from 1 to 4.6 metres over the past month at its site around 25 metres under the sea off the Garden Island Naval Base.

Carnegie CEO Michael Ottaviano says verified results will be crucial for the final design of its planned demonstration project, which will likely have 20 units with a total capacity of around 2MW. Ottaviano says the company has now moved into the detailed design phase and will secure all approvals, permits and offtake arrangements necessary to allow the project to progress and allow construction in 2012.

While interest (and progress) in wave power projects has lagged that of tidal power projects in recent years, ocean energy company Carnegie Wave Energy has continued plugging away in the field and recently announced that it has successfully activated its first commercial-scale CETO unit off Garden Island in Western Australia on the weekend - ahead of schedule.

The West Australian has a report on the launch - Carnegie makes waves with renewable energy

Carnegie's technology, developed by company founder and inventor Alan Burns, relies on buoys anchored on the ocean floor that use the motion of passing waves to drive pumps which then deliver pressurised water to shore.

The company will monitor power produced at the Garden Island site over the next month and if all goes to plan, will eventually install up to 30 units, enough to produce power for 3500 homes.

Carnegie managing director Michael Ottaviano said yesterday the unit was producing power "exactly as expected". "This is the most significant milestone in Carnegie's history," Dr Ottaviano said.

The State Government has invested $12.5 million in Carnegie's efforts to bring its CETO technology to market. But despite Australia's reliable wave source, the company has increasingly been forced to look overseas for development funds. In 2009, it scrapped plans to develop the world's biggest wave power project near Albany after it was overlooked for a major Federal Government grant. The $300 million pilot project had aimed to produce 50MW of power, enough electricity for 30,000 homes.

Wave energy, in theory at least, could provide up to one third of Australia’s energy needs, according to Carnegie, although the CSIRO has predicted even greater potential. In a country rich with renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal, not to mention its fossil fuels, it will likely never meet that capacity. But it could play a key role in some areas, particularly if it delivers on its cost predictions, and may become critical to the energy needs of countries in Europe, Africa and South America, that have few other options. ...

Ottaviano says Carnegie will monitor the unit’s performance over the next 6-8 weeks, but within the next few months will make a decision on where to deploy its first full-scale demonstration plant, likely to be up to 20 units generating around 2MW of power.

Garden Island is the most likely option, because it can deliver the project in the quickest time, but the company is also being courted by Reunion Island, where its partner, the French energy giant EDF, is offering to pay half its costs and the French government offering to pay a generous feed in tariff.

Wherever the first demonstration plant is built, the future roll-out of multiple units is likely to take place overseas, where some countries such as Ireland and Scotland are battling to become the world centre for ocean energy.

“The countries pursuing wave energy are doing so because they see a competitive advantage,” Ottaviano says. “They want to own the space. It’s not just about generating kilowatt hours into the grid, it’s about industry development and IP generation. That sort of argument doesn’t penetrate in Australia. All we hear about is the costs in developing the technologies.”

Ottaviano notes that Ireland, where Carnegie has developed strong commercial relationships, is the only country in the world with a defined wave energy target – it wants to install 500MW of capacity by 2020.

Carnegie’s own goal is to have 40-50MW of installed capacity by 2015, and it is likely to happen either in western European countries that are offering generous tariffs, or on remote islands, where local authorities are seeking to displace expensive diesel.

Ottaviano says analysis by Parsons Brinckerhoff suggested that once economies of scale are achieved, costs could fall to as low as 12c per kilowatt hour. “We will start higher than that, so the best markets for us will be where we can get the best tariffs.”

In Bermuda, for instance, where the company has recently installed a wave-monitoring buoy, the proposed tariff is 42c/kWh. “The trick for us is in the next five years, deploy 50MW of projects in high tariff region and use them to generate economies of scale to get costs down to 12-13c/kWh,” Ottaviano says. “At that point we will be competitive with wind.”