CorPower Ocean has successfully installed its first commercial-scale wave energy converter in northern Portugal.
The CorPower C4 device was launched in the port of Viana do Castello, before being towed to the Aguçadoura site located 4km offshore.
This latest deployment will help accelerate mass take-up of the technology, says the company. “This is a big milestone for CorPower Ocean and a very exciting chapter for marine energy,” said CorPower Ocean chief executive Patrik Möller.
After connecting to a pre-installed UMACK anchor on the seabed, the device was connected to the Portuguese national grid through a subsea export cable. The system will now undergo a commissioning program, with functions and operational modes being verified.
Operations and maintenance methods for offshore service access, device retrieval and tow-back to the onshore base in Viana do Castelo will also be tested.
The C4 previously completed a one-year dry test program with simulated wave loading in Stockholm, to tune and debug the system.
CorPower director of integration & testing Jean-Michel Chauvet said they were now entering the exciting demonstration phase. “This builds on 40 years of scientific research followed by a decade of structured engineering to deliver a step-change improvement to the performance and reliability of wave energy,” he said.
Having entered the final phase of a structured 5-stage product verification process which began in 2012, CorPower Ocean now aims to take its technology to a type-certified offering in the coming years.
The Hiwave-5 Project is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and Portugal 2020 through AICEP Global (Norte2020) and CCDR-N. CorPower Ocean has also been financially supported by EIT InnoEnergy, the European Commission, Wave Energy Scotland, CoreSpring New Technology, ALMI Invest Greentech, SEB Greentech VC and additional private investors.
