Wave Energy Project To Be Awarded 1.37 Million
Dublin, Ireland - Finavera Renewables Limited (Finavera Renewables) a private Irish renewable energy company focused on wind and wave energy development, announced that its' wholly owned subsidiary, AquaEnergy Group Ltd, has been successful in its application to the European Commission under the Framework Protocol 6 (FP6) program. As a result, the European Commission may contribute up to €1.37 million toward the deployment of a wave energy power plant off the coast of Portugal, subject to successful contract negotiations and completion of the internal, formal selection process.
Wave Energy Converter Project
The AquaEnergy Group is a 100% owned subsidiary of Finavera Renewables, and has received a letter of successful evaluation from the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy and Transport. The award of up to €1.37 million may be granted under the European Commission's Framework Protocol 6 program as a contribution to the deployment of a 2MW full scale wave energy conversion power plant in Portugal. The proposed power plant will be situated in 60 meters of water approximately 10 kilometers off the coastline midway between the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Porto. Once successful operation of the plant has been demonstrated, the plant generating capacity is expected to be increased to 100MW – producing enough electricity to power more than 60,000 homes.
Alla Weinstein, CEO of AquaEnergy said, "This award reflects the last four years of work that the team has put into the project. With our partners, Dunlop Oil and Marine, Portuguese engineering group Kynamar and Labelec, a division of the Portugal's largest utility - Energias de Portugal (EDP), we will begin executing our deployment plan once negotiations with the European Commission and the partners are completed." She continued, "The Portuguese groups in particular have been very supportive as they see the long term value in building a wave technology industry. It has been estimated recently that the country's coastline contains enough exploitable energy to contribute up 20% of the country's total electricity consumption - a total value of over €5 billion."
Jason Bak, CEO of Finavera Renewables commented "We are very excited about being in this position, at the right time and place. We are looking towards the future where wave power generation will join the commercial realm along with other types of renewables like wind energy. Recent technological advances are moving wave energy forward to a cost competitive renewable source of electricity." Adding, "Not only does this award assist us in deploying our AquaBuOY technology at a true commercial scale, but along with our 1MW Makah Bay project in Washington, USA, we can now start to look at building a pipeline of other projects world wide."
SOURCE: Finavera Renewables