Alstom and the leading Scottish marine developer SSE Renewables have signed a joint venture deal to develop the world’s largest wave farm.
If successful, the Costa Head Wave project will generate up to 200MW of wave energy in Pentland Firth.
Subject to getting the necessary permits, Alstom and SSE Renewables intend to populate the site with AWS-III wave energy converters, a technology under development by AWS Ocean Energy, in which Alstom acquired a 40% equity share in June 2011.
The Costa Head site, owned by Crown Estate, is in water depths of 60m to 75m, approximately 5km to the north of Orkney Mainland. SSE Renewables and Alstom plan detailed site surveys and an environmental impact assessment to develop the site with an initial phase of around 10MW, before moving on to install the full site capacity.
SSE Renewables, the leading wave and tidal utility in Scotland, received exclusive development rights to the Costa Head site from the Crown Estate in 2010, and with partners is currently developing half of the 1.6 GW of wave and tidal sites leased by the Crown Estate as part of a commercial leasing programme for marine energy projects.
Established in 2004, AWS Ocean Energy is focused on the development and delivery of its AWS-III wave energy converter, a floating device with a rated power output of 2.5 MW. 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 the support of the Scottish Enterprise-administered WATERS fund (Wave and Tidal Energy: Research, Development and Demonstration Support), with a full-scale prototype planned for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre in 2014.
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 interconnected cells. Turbine-generator sets convert the pneumatic power to electricity.
Alstom Renewable Power president Jérôme Pécresse said: “We are delighted to announce our agreement with SSE Renewables, one of the leading developer of marine energy in the world, to develop Costa Head, which is the largest wave energy site being developed today in the world. When completed, it will make a valuable contribution to the UK's renewable energy targets.”
