EU backs €4M wave energy research with Carnegie as tech partner

September 5, 2025, by Zerina Maksumić

Australian wave energy developer Carnegie Clean Energy has been named the key technology partner in the COIN (Control-Oriented Innovations for future wave energy farms) project, funded under the Horizon Europe Program with a total budget of €4 million.

Illustration/CETO wave energy array (Courtesy of Carnegie Clean Energy)

The four-year initiative, coordinated by Technische Universitaet Braunschweig in Germany, brings together nine organizations from across Europe, including Carnegie Technologies Spain, IFP Energies Nouvelles, Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa, WavEC Offshore Renewables, Aalborg Universitet, Politecnico di Torino, Quoceant, and Hewlett-Packard Galway.

Carnegie’s CETO wave energy converter will serve as the reference technology for testing and validation. The company will receive €383,000 for its contribution, with no cash outlay required.

COIN aims to develop innovations to improve the reliability and survivability of future wave energy farms. Planned work includes a new connector system, an AI-based wave prediction tool, and a digital-twin health monitoring and control framework. The consortium targets a 30% reduction in the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) for wave energy.

Through COIN, Carnegie said it would extend collaboration with Quoceant and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, both of which were also part of the ACHIEVE program. Quoceant will scale up CETO mooring connectors, while HPE will continue work on advanced control systems for commercial deployments.

“The innovations being developed in this project, particularly in areas like real-time wave prediction and digital twin technology, are exactly the kind of solutions that will help further reduce the cost of wave energy which accelerates scale-up,” said Carnegie CEO Jonathan Fievez.

“Having these developments directly applied to CETO ensures that we are at the forefront of wave energy technology innovations. These advancements will enable us to more effectively manage the dynamic and powerful forces of the ocean, which is essential for improving upon the robustness and commercial viability of a technology like CETO.”

The project builds on Carnegie’s proposed 6 MW commercial-scale CETO deployment disclosed earlier this year.

CETO is a fully submerged, point absorber-type wave energy technology device. A submerged buoy sits a few meters below the surface and moves with the ocean’s waves. This orbital motion drives a power take-off (PTO) system that converts this motion into electricity.

In July, Carnegie signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) and commenced the development of a 6 MW wave energy array in Spain’s Basque Country.