Another British wave device welcomed in Portugal

The site will be connected to the Portuguese electricity grid and deliver power for up to 1,500 homes. When the first unit has been connected, two further MRCs will be added to the site, increasing the power output to 4.5MW and making it the world’s largest operating wave farm to date, providing power for nearly 5,000 homes. The partners intend to develop further multi-megawatt sites in Portugal over the next 10 years.

Orecon’s CEO, David Crisp, commented, ‘We are delighted to be working with such an experienced and forward thinking farm developer like Eneólica and are confident that the partnership can deliver a commercially successful project.’

Eneólica is a major Portuguese developer with its main focus on the production of electricity from renewable energy sources including wind, wave, solar, biomass and hydro power.

Eneólica’s CEO, Agostinho Ribeiro said, ‘We are very happy to be able to work with Orecon in the development of this project, given the great potential of the technology and also the high competence and experience of Orecon´s team, which is one of the most important assets for the success of this project.’

In addition to this project in Portugal, Orecon was recently awarded a berth at the UK Wave Hub in Cornwall and has now started pursuing partners with whom to deploy a UK test array there. As David Crisp said, ‘We are excited by our berth at Wave Hub and expect to make progress there as soon as the expected Government funding is confirmed. It will also be essential for the rumoured support for marine renewables to be made a reality, at least to match that given in Scotland and Portugal.’

The patented MRC is an offshore wave device which utilises the principle of the oscillating water column (OWC). As such, the device has no moving parts within the water. Volumes of air are pushed and drawn through Dresser-Rand’s highly efficient HydroAir turbines which are directly coupled to the electrical generators, all located above the waterline.