200 MW WAVE ENERGY PROJECT GETS BACKING

Alstom and SSE Renewables create joint venture to co-develop world's largest wave farm off the coast of Orkney, Scotland
January 17, 2012 (Alstom)

"Alstom and the leading Scottish marine developer SSE Renewables have signed a new joint venture agreement to develop the Costa Head Wave Project, an up to 200 Megawatts (MW) wave energy site located north of mainland Orkney, in The Crown Estate’s Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Strategic Area.

"Alstom and SSE Renewables will work together to obtain the necessary permits and intend to populate the site with AWS-III wave energy converters, [a floating device with a rated power output of 2.5 MW]…Alstom acquired a 40% equity share [in the technology] in June 2011.. A 1:9 scale model of the AWS-III was tested in Loch Ness in 2010. Full scale component testing will commence in 2012…with a full-scale prototype planned for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre in 2014]…"



"The Costa Head site is located in water depths of 60 – 75m approximately 5km to the north of Orkney Mainland. SSE Renewables and Alstom propose to carry out detailed site surveys and an environmental impact assessment (EIA),to develop the site with an initial phase of around 10MW [4 AWS-III devices of 12 cells, each measuring around 16m wide by 8m deep, arranged around a structure with overall beam of up to 60m and a structural steel weight of less than 1300 tonne], before moving on to install the full site capacity. [The AWS-III will be slack moored in water depths of 65 to 150m using standard mooring spreads. Devices will be arranged in arrays or ‘farms’ of up to several hundred MW total rating. Each AWS-III will be connected to a central offshore substation via a high-voltage umbilical link]

"Wave energy is a widely distributed renewable resource worldwide, with an estimated potential market of 200 to 300 Gigawatts(GW). Its proximity to densely populated regions of Europe and North America makes it an attractive new source of renewable energy. The AWS-III technology consists of a multi-cell array of flexible membrane absorbers which convert wave power to pneumatic power through compression of air within cells that are inter-connected. Turbine-generator sets are provided to convert the pneumatic power to electricity…"