The Long Wait For “Flying Saucer” Wave Energy Is Almost Over – CleanTechnica

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With AI, gaming, EV charging, and crypto mining on the rise, energy planners are casting about for new ways to harvest more zero emission electricity, more quickly. Meanwhile, the answer is staring them in the face. 70% of the Earth’s surface is a huge untapped reserve of wave energy.

The Long Wait For Wave Energy Harvesting

The US Department of Energy estimates that the kinetic energy of waves alone could account for almost 60% of US electricity demand. Developing a cost-effective device that transfers that activity into clean kilowatts has been a challenge, but breakthroughs are beginning to occur.

One of them is the “CETO” wave energy harvesting device engineered by the Australian firm Carnegie Clean Energy, named after the Greek goddess of sea creatures. The company crossed the CleanTechnica radar shortly after its launch in the early 2000s. Under the name Carnegie Wave Energy, it installed three devices off Garden Island in Western Australia, where the country’s largest naval base is located.

Carnegie changed its name to Carnegie Clean Energy and expanded into solar energy in 2016, then almost gave up the ghost in 2019. With the help of a corporate culture makeover, Carnegie regained its footing, leading to several key developments this year with an assist from the US Department of Energy

In January, the Energy Department included Carnegie in a $1.3 million round of funding aimed at smoothing the way for marine energy innovators to access a network of testing facilities in the US, under the umbrella of a program called TEAMER. Short for Testing Expertise and Access for Marine Energy Research, the program makes US marine energy testing facilities available to wave and tidal energy researchers from around the world.

Though $1.3 million is a relatively modest pot to share, the program has an outsized impact on the pace of marine energy R&D, helping to shrink the timeline between development and commercialization.

Two More Thumbs-Up For Wave Energy…

Another development surfaced on February 1, when Carnegie announced that has become a dual-listed firm. The OTC Market Group is handling the company’s North American affairs through the OTCQB market, while its listing at ASX in Australia continues. OTCQB is described as an equity market focusing on emerging companies.

“Trading and information flow through the OTCQB platform will allow the company to engage with renewable energy focussed investors in the US in a targeted and meaningful way,” Carnegie explained.

In April, the Carnegie subsidiary CETO Wave Energy Ireland also nailed down a reservation to deploy a CETO device at a test site called Biscay Marine Energy Platform off the coast of Basque Country in Spain, by virtue of an agreement with the firm Wave Energy Scotland Limited.

The sought-after berth did not come easy. “Carnegie earned the preferential choice of berth reservation by achieving the highest rating for its bid in Phase 3 of EuropeWave PCP Programme,” Carnegie noted.

In the most recent step, last week the CETO wave energy device earned a slot on the certification schedule of Lloyd’s Register. If CETO passes muster with Lloyd’s assessment team, Carnegie can pursue performance certification under standards  established by the International Electrochemical Commission for renewable energy applications, or IECRE for short. The certification system aims to promote international trade in renewable energy technology.

“Carnegie’s pursuit of IECRE certification for its CETO device is a strategic step in CETO’s commercialisation pathway providing multifaceted benefits,” explained Carnegie CTO Alexandre Pichard.

“It mitigates risks, streamlines regulatory compliance, builds credibility and validates CETO’s technical characteristics,” he emphasized. “By aligning CETO with international standards, the company is moving towards wider adoption of the technology and a future where wave energy is a competitive solution in our global energy mix.”

How Does It Work?

Wave energy stakeholders have been pursuing a number of different engineering strategies. Some are in the form of huge onion-shaped buoys, while others resemble mechanical sea serpents. Others are attached to shoreline infrastructure in the form of paddles (see more wave energy background here).

CETO is a fully submerged wave energy device that follows the buoy model in a unique saucer-shaped silhouette, tethered to the seabed at multiple points. “A submerged buoy sits a few metres below the surface of the ocean and moves with the ocean’s waves,” Carnegie explains. “This orbital motion drives a power take-off (PTO) system that converts this motion into electricity.”

The fully submerged angle is significant on two accounts. It skirts any aesthetic objections to hardware floating on the ocean in sight of people on shore, and it protects the equipment from storms.

Wave Energy In The USA

While all this is going on, the US has also been pulling its weight in the international race for wave energy. The US Navy set up the country’s first grid-connected wave energy test site at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, at Kaneohe Bay in Oahu. The facility was ready for action by 2010 and it has gone through several upgrades since then.

Now, Oregon State University is upping the ante with a new open-ocean test site located seven miles off the coast of Oregon. Called PacWave South, the facility represents a new level of testing for wave energy stakeholders in the US. “There currently is no U.S. facility for developers to measure the electrical and environmental performance of their devices at this scale,” Oregon State University explains.

PacWave South is “billed as the first ever accredited, grid-connected, pre-permitted, open-water wave energy test facility in the US,” CleanTechnica noted back in 2022, when the Energy Department staked $25 million to support an inaugural cohort of eight marine energy projects at the facility. The state of Oregon is also contributing to the project along with other public and private sources.

Work on the $100 million facility is almost complete. In July, Oregon State University described how the grid connection is being engineered, with specialized power and data cables buried under the seabed. The complex operation involves a 10-13 mile route and three installation vessels, two of which will operate on a 24/7 basis.

If all goes according to plan, the first devices will hit the water in next year and grid-connected tests will begin in 2026, so stay tuned for more on that.

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Image (cropped): Activity is picking up in the wave energy field, where innovators are racing to harvest a global potential of 500 gigawatts’ worth of clean power (courtesy of Carnegie Clean Energy).