Carnegie Wave Energy, EDF EN, DCNS team up on 15 MW wave power project

(ADPnews) - June 2, 2010 - Australian clean technologies developer Carnegie Wave Energy Limited (ASX:CWE) said today it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with French companies EDF Energies Nouvelles SA (EPA:EEN), or EDF EN, and DCNS to jointly build a 15 MW wave power project near Madagasar.

Carnegie and EDF EN, the renewable energy arm of French utility EDF, will jointly own and finance the project.
EDF EN will be majority owner of the special-purpose vehicle which will run the project with 51% stake and Carnegie will hold the remaining 49%.
DCNS will be in charge of the engineering, procurement, construction and management (EPCM) of the project.
The MoU is still non-binding. The parties are now finalising the agreements.

The facility will be located off the coast of the Reunion Island in the French overseas territory in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar and Mauritius. It will be built in three stages.

Firstly, in the next 12 months, a single unit will be installed at sea. Afterwords the plant will be scaled up to 2 MW and a second expansion will enhance the power plant's total capacity to 15 MW. The whole project will receive a feed-in-tariff and 75% of the first stage will be government funded. After successful completion of stage 1, the firms will seek further governmental support to carry out the expansions.

The plant will use the CETO technology, developed by Carnegie. Unlike similar wave power systems CETO is fully submerged in deep water, anchored to the ocean floor, away from popular surf breaks and where it is safer from storms. The system consists of an array of submerged buoys tethered to seabed pump units. The buoys move in harmony with the motion of the passing waves, driving the pumps which in turn pressurise water that is delivered ashore via a pipeline. The high-pressure water is used to drive hydroelectric turbines, generating electricity. The high-pressure water can also be used to supply a reverse osmosis desalination plant.

Carnegie is developer and intellectual property owner of the CETO system and of any further improvements that might be made. The firm will get a fee for licensing the technology to the project after stage 1 has been completed.

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