CorPower Ocean Installs First Commercial Wave Energy Converter Offshore Portugal

CorPower Ocean,a Sweden-based developer of wave energy converters (WEC), said Tuesday it had installed its first commercial-scale WEC in northern Portugal, "as it accelerates towards making wave energy a bankable technology for mass deployment."

The CorPower C4 device was launched in the port of Viana do Castello, before being towed to the Aguçadoura site located 4km offshore.

After connecting to a pre-installed UMACK anchor on the seabed, the device was connected to the Portuguese national grid through a subsea export cable. The system will now undergo a commissioning program, with functions and operational modes being gradually verified. 

Operations and Maintenance (O&M) methods for offshore service access, device retrieval, and tow-back to the on-land service base in Viana do Castelo will also be tested.

CorPower Ocean CEO Patrik Möller said: “This is a big milestone for CorPower Ocean and a very exciting chapter for marine energy. I am hugely proud of the entire CorPower Ocean team who have worked relentlessly to make this happen. The effort of the team and our partners to take us here is simply remarkable.” 

The C4 previously completed a one-year dry test program with simulated wave loading in Stockholm, to tune and debug the system. It incorporates breakthrough technology to unleash the full potential of wave energy at utility-scale, including inherent storm protection for extreme conditions and advanced control technology for amplified power capture in regular sea states.

CorPower Director of Integration & Testing Jean-Michel Chauvet said: “We are now entering an exciting phase demonstrating our first commercial scale machine. This builds on 40 years of scientific research followed by a decade of structured engineering to deliver a step-change improvement to the performance and reliability of wave energy.” 

CorPower Ocean said Tuesday that one of the biggest challenges for the world to reach net-zero goals is to ensure there is clean energy available at all times, 24/7 each day of the year, and that with its consistent power profile, "wave energy can take on the critical role to help stabilizing our energy systems - This is key to address climate change – and for the world to leave fossil behind."

Having entered the final phase of a structured 5-stage product verification process, which began in 2012, CorPower Ocean aims to take its technology to a type certified bankable technology offering in the coming years, the company said.

The Hiwave-5 Project is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and Portugal 2020 through AICEP Global (Norte2020) and CCDR-N. CorPower Ocean has also been financially supported by EIT InnoEnergy, the European Commission, Wave Energy Scotland, CoreSpring New Technology, ALMI Invest Greentech, SEB Greentech VC and additional private investors.