EGP will invest around €1 million ($1.1 million) in the collaboration activities envisaged by the agreement.
“EGP is active in scouting and promoting the most innovative technologies in the renewables field: marine energy is the most challenging and appealing example. Australia’s powerful marine waves represent one of the most attractive sources available,” said Antonio Cammisecra, Head of Enel Green Power.
Under the agreement, EGP and CCE will also cooperate within the framework of the Albany Wave Energy Project (AWEP), a government-backed development project involving the design, manufacture, installation and 12-month testing of a full scale CETO 6 unit offshore in Albany, Western Australia. The AWEP testing phase is expected to start by the first half of 2020.
The agreement provides for EGP to become a technical committee member of both CCE and Wave Energy Research Centre run by the University of Western Australia with support from the Western Australian Government.
The new CETO 6 wave energy generator represents a further development by CCE of the previous CETO 5 unit. The new facility incorporates on-board power generation as well as multiple moorings and power take-off (PTO) modules, which convert the kinetic energy from waves into electricity. The new CETO 6 unit will have a nameplate capacity of 1.5 MW which is a substantial increase from the 240 kW of the previous CETO 5. Through multiple moorings and PTO modules potentially boosting power output, CETO 6 is expected to become competitive with other mainstream renewable technologies once manufactured in high volumes and built at large project scale.
