Carnegie Wave Energy Ltd has signed a cooperation agreement with the Water Corporation of Western Australia to develop a pilot wave-powered desalination plant which will be the first of its kind in the world.
The pilot plant will be deployed on Garden Island, Western Australia, which is home to Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling. It will also be co-located with Carnegie's Perth Wave Energy Project on the island integrating off-the-shelf reverse osmosis desalination with the Perth Project's wave energy infrastructure.
The Water Corporation is widely recognised as a world leader in desalination technology. It built the first large-scale mainland desaliation plant in Australia in 2006 and has embarked on the construction of another plant south of Perth at Binningup. The key tasks needing completion ahead of the Garden Island plant include detailed design, securing environmental approvals and integration of the construction and commissioning of the pilot into the delivery of the Perth Wave Energy Project. The development of the pilot is supported by $1.27 million in Federal Government grant funding from AustIndustry's Clean Technology Innovation Programme.
"We are pleased to have the support of the Water Corporation with our project. Water Corporation are innovators in the field of seawater desalination and Carnegie's wave powered desalination pilot will be a world first" said Carnegie's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Dr Michael Ottaviano.
The Water Corporation's Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Sue Murphy, added that seawater desalination is an important part of Perth's long term water supply solution and that the corporation is also intent on minimising the environmental impact of its desalination operations.
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