Enel Green Power (EGP), the Enel Group’s renewable energy arm, and Australian renewable developer Carnegie Clean Energy Limited (“CCE”) signed a Collaboration Agreement aimed at developing and testing CCE’s CETO 6 wave energy generator. Under the agreement, EGP and Carnegie will also work together to identify, develop and invest in new opportunities for CETO 6 across Australia, Europe and globally.
EGP will invest around one million euros (1.6 million AUS dollars) 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. “The agreement with CCE, a company that has been active in marine energy research for a decade, allows us to leverage on one of the most disruptive energy generation technologies with good potential for further developments.”
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 also 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.
CCE is an Australian Stock Exchange-listed renewable developer with over 10,000 Australian shareholders. The company is the 100% owner and developer of the CETO Wave Energy Technology intellectual property.