Wave Energy Centre Receives USD40 Million for New Test Facility

Oregon State University’s Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center has been awarded up to USD40 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, to create a wave energy test facility in Newport. The NNMREC facility, known as the Pacific Marine Energy Center South Energy Test Site (PMEC-SETS), is planned to be operational by 2020. It will be able to test wave energy converters that harness the energy of ocean waves and turn it into electricity. Companies around the world are already anticipating construction of the new facility to test and perfect their technologies, OSU officials say.

Belinda Batten, the director of NNMREC and a professor in the OSU College of Engineering anticipates this centre to be the world’s most advanced wave energy test facility.

Ocean Conditions

The devices have to perform in hostile ocean conditions; stand up to a 100-year storm; be energy efficient, durable, environmentally benign – and perhaps most important, cost-competitive with other energy sources.

The DOE award is subject to appropriations and will be used to design, permit and construct an open-water, grid-connected national wave energy testing facility. It will include four grid-connected test berths.

In making the award, the agency noted that more than 50 percent of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of coastlines, offering America the potential to develop a domestic wave energy industry that could help provide reliable power to coastal regions.

Investments in marine and hydrokinetic energy technology will encourage domestic manufacturing, create jobs and advance this technology to help achieve the nation’s energy goals, DOE officials said in their announcement of this award. Studies have estimated that even if only a small portion of the energy available from waves is recovered, millions of homes could be powered.