The first wave energy converter (WEC) devices may now be deployed at the Wave Hub test site following approval by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).
The MMO has announced it has approved an application from OceanEnergy Ltd to deploy and test an OEB35 OceanEnergy buoy WEC for a period of up to three years. The energy buoy will be anchored and connected to the Wave Hub 16 kilometres off the north coast of Cornwall and is capable of generating up to 1 megawatt of electricity.
Wave Hub is a grid-connected offshore facility in South West England for the large scale testing of technologies that generate electricity from the power of the waves.
The MMO is responsible for licensing offshore generating stations including wind farms, wave and tidal devices with a capacity between 1 and 100 megawatts. Developers may also need to lease relevant areas of the seabed from The Crown Estate.
Claire Gibson, general manager at Wave Hub, which is the world’s largest grid-connected offshore marine energy test site, said:
“We are delighted that OEL has been given the green light from the MMO to deploy the first wave energy device at Wave Hub and that the consent process has gone so smoothly. We look forward to assisting them with their deployment later this year.”
John McCarthy, chief executive and co-founder of OceanEnergy Ltd said:
“Having completed successful trials of a scale device for over three years in Galway Bay we are delighted to be the first developer to be awarded a marine license to deploy at Wave Hub. This will enable us to proceed with our anchor trials at the Wave Hub site and test the proposed system prior to a full-scale deployment.”
In the past seven years £100 million has been invested in the South West marine energy industry, including the Wave Hub development and in January 2012 the region was designated as the UK’s first marine energy park by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
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