Politicians eye wave energy to power WA’s Great Southern

The Labor party of Western Australia (WA) plans to include wave energy farm to the mix of renewable energy projects aimed at making Albany completely powered by renewable energy sources.

The election promise by the WA’s Labor party to spend Au$19.5 million on renewable energy projects in the town of Albany will also include funds designated to the development of wave energy farm, according to ABC News.

The party has suggested Carnegie Clean Energy (CCE) as one of the potential developers of the wave farm, but as ABC News reports, the company has declined to comment on its position when it comes to proposal of the WA’s Labor party.

Furthermore, the Director of the Grattan Institute’s Energy Program, Tony Wood, has reportedly emphasized the need for a careful approach, calling for a study before moving ahead with plans for the wave farm.

“If you’re moving away from diesel towards solar or wind, or in this case we’re talking about wave technology, we need to understand how that technology works, what its characteristics are, and how we can actually manage it to make sure that there are no threats to security or even affordability of supply,” Wood was quoted as saying by ABC News.

To remind, CCE has in 2015 completed the Perth Wave Energy Project, which involved an array of three CETO 5 wave energy units, after achieving over 14,000 hours of deployment across over 12 months of operation.

CCE is now focused on developing its CETO 6 technology, and has recently launched a CETO 6 project at the Wave Hub test center in Cornwall, while also developing microgrid projects in Australia.