Iberdrola Engineering is in the driving seat of an innovative international proposal to develop a new wave energy device and marine energy park in which the company will work alongside the Swedish company CorPower Ocean and Portugese marine research centre WayEC. The HiWave project includes the creation of a new wave energy device with a special emphasis on improving the efficiency of wave energy technology. The project will also involve the subsequent design of an offshore marine energy park to house a demonstration device. The marine energy park will be developed entirely around this new technology.
The Iberdrola Group will be responsible for developing the offshore marine park while CorPower Ocean, which specialises in the development of wave energy converters, will be responsible for designing the device. WayEC will work to support analysis and validation during each phase of the project.
Completion of the project is expected in 2016 and the project has a total budget of 15 million euros with part of the funding coming from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) through one of its knowledge and innovation communities, KIC InnoEnergy. The project is widely considered to be one of the most important initiatives of its kind in the marine energy sector.
Iberdrola Group has helped to pioneer previous wave energy initiatives and is also involved with other renewable energy technologies such as offshore wind, energy efficiency development and smart grid technology. The core of its business however is in offshore wind power where it has already helped to devlop over 8,000MW of capacity. The company is currently also involved in building a wave energy plant using the Pelamis P2 technology and is also working with the Australian company Andritz Hydro Hammerfest and the French company Alstom to develop 10MW of wave energy at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in the Sound of Islay in Scotland using devices similar to onshore wind turbines but adapted to ocean currents.
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