Eco Wave Power Global will connect its commercial-scale wave energy project to Israel’s electricity grid after signing a power purchase agreement with the Israeli National Electric Company (IEC).
The EWP-EDF wave energy project at the Port of Jaffa has been developed with funding from French utility EDF and the Israeli Energy Ministry and will be the first-ever wave energy project to be connected to Israel’s energy grid.
The project has been undertaking grid test runs since July 2022 which saw floating devices (floaters) that capture energy from waves lowered into the water for the first time.
The floaters convert the rising and falling motion of waves by compressing and decompressing hydraulic pistons which transmit biodegradable hydraulic fluid to accumulators located on the shore. The pressure rotates a hydraulic motor, which in turn powers a turbine. The electricity is transferred to the grid via an inverter. Waves can be produced from heights of as little as 50cm, according to Eco Wave Power’s website.
The NASDAQ-listed company also has a pilot project at AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles and already holds concession agreements for commercial-scale wave power plants in Spain, Portugal and Turkey. When the Israeli and US projects are connected to the electricity grid, the group will have a total project pipeline of 404.7 MW.
Eco Wave Power’s first project was a 5 MW wave park in Gibraltar, which came online in 2016 and was funded by the EU Regional Development Fund.
Many regions around the world have identified enormous potential for wave and tidal energy, yet in the past decade while thousands of megawatts of wind and solar projects have gone ahead, there are only a handful of commercial-scale wave projects.
The CSIRO’s Wave Atlas research has identified strong potential for a wave energy industry in Australia, which could contribute up to 11 per cent of the country’s electricity needs. Waves in the Southern Ocean are consistently generated from southerly winds travelling to Australia’s southern coastline.
Australia’s most promising scheme is the Perth Wave Energy Project, which cost $40 million with part funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and was completed in 2017. The project, which also produces desalinated water, uses a fully submerged buoy tethered to a pump on the seabed which transfers energy when the waves rise and fall. The pump pressurises fluid which is then sent onshore via a subsea pipeline. The fluid is then used to operate a hydroelectric power plant. The project sells electricity for the Department of Defence for HMAS Stirling, a Naval Base on Garden Island.
Wave energy projects often fail due to their high cost, and the potential for their cablesm turbines and other infrastructure to interfere with marine life, according to the World Economic Forum. The International Energy Agency has forecasted that wave power generation needs to grow 33 per cent per year to make a meaningful contribution to net zero emissions by 2050.