Australia’s Carnegie Wave Energy Project Sets World Record

June 2nd, 2016 by Joshua S Hill

Australia’s Carnegie Wave Energy Project has set a new world record after completing 14,000 cumulative operating hours, the highest ever recorded.

The news was announced by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) this week, which provided $13.1 million in funding. The $40 million project uses CETO wave energy technology, and was the world’s first array of wave power generators to be connected to an electricity grid. For the past 12 months, the CETO 5 project has used an array of three offshore wave power generators to provide electricity and potable desalinated water to Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling, on Garden Island in Western Australia.

“ARENA is proud to help local companies, like [Carnegie Wave Energy Limited], develop new renewable energy solutions that have the potential to change the way the world generates electricity,” said ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht. “We do this by providing Australian innovators with the support they need during the critical RD&D period, when patient funding is essential.”

“The CETO 5 project demonstrates what this support can do for a technology’s development: assisting Carnegie to propel its technology’s development from an independently assessed Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of five, to a seven out of nine, in just three short years.”

Wave energy technology is the epitome of a no-brain solution for the world’s smallest continent/largest island, with more than 80% of the population living on the coast. As such, wave energy technology has benefited from generally positive support throughout the country, even when other technologies such as solar and wind were dismissed or criticized for taking government subsidies. Australia has long been a technological innovator across a wide spread of fields, and the Carnegie Wave Energy Project has the potential to not only be a local source of power, but also an exportable solution.









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