Wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Western Australia's government power utility, Western Power, to deliver a renewable energy island micro grid project.
The Garden Island Micro Grid Project (GIMG) will be the first such wave-integrated renewable scheme to be connected to an electricity network. The GIMG will consist of the CETO 6 project currently in progress and the existing reverse osmosis desalination plant currently operating on Garden Island. It will also add an additional 2MW of peak solar photovoltaic power generation and sufficient energy storage to allow safe, stable and reliable interaction with the electricity grid.
Carnegie's CEO, Dr Michael Ottaviano said: "Carnegie sees great potential to integrate its world leading CETO wave technology into islands as well as fringe of grid applications wherever there is a strong wave resource. Western Australia presents itself as an attractive option to locate wave power projects in coastal communities and avoid building and maintaining long transmission lines."
“We will provide engineering expertise to assess the technical challenges of enabling a two way flow of power between a large integrated network and a microgrid that has a mix of renewable sources of generation, including wave energy," Western Power CEO Paul Italiano added.
Garden Island is about 10km long, 1.5km wide, lying about 5km off the Western Australian coast.
