Riding the Green Waves In The Land Down Under

Named after a Greek sea goddess, CETO harnesses the enormous renewable energy present in our ocean’s waves and converts it into two of the most valuable commodities in the sustainable growth of the planet; zero-emission electricity and zero-emission desalinated water. An innovative green technology from Carnegie Wave Energy Limited headquartered in Perth, Australia, initial development of CETO began in 1999 and by 2006, the CETO I prototype proved the concept of generating zero-emission power and freshwater from the ocean waves.

The CETO wave power converters are comprised of a series of underwater buoys that use wave energy to drive pump units tethered to the seabed. The technology is the first in which the units are fully submerged and permanently anchored to the sea floor meaning that there is no visual impact as the units are out of sight. This also assists in making them safe from the extreme forces that can be present during storms. They are self-tuning to the tide, sea state and wave pattern, making them able to perform in a wide variety of wave heights and in any direction.

By delivering high pressure seawater ashore, the technology allows either zero-emission electricity to be produced (similar to hydroelectricity) or zero-emission freshwater (utilizing standard reverse osmosis desalination technology). It also means that there is no need for undersea grids or high voltage transmission nor costly marine qualified plants.

Some other advantages of wave energy and CETO include:

Wave energy is a renewable, zero-emission source of power.
60% of the world live within 60km (40 miles) of a coast, removing transmission issues.
As water is approximately 800 times denser than air, the energy density of waves vastly exceeds that of wind dramatically increasing the amount of energy available for harvesting.
Waves are predictable days in advance making it easy to match supply and demand. (Wind is predictable hours in advance at best.)

CETO sits underwater, moored to the sea floor, resulting in no aesthetic impact.
CETO units are designed to operate in harmony with the waves rather than attempting to resist them. This means there is no need for massive steel and concrete structures to be built.
CETO wave farms will have no impact on popular surfing sites as breaking waves equate to areas of energy loss.
CETO wave farms will operate in water deeper than 15 meters (49.2 feet), in areas where there are no breaking waves.
CETO units attract marine life.
CETO is the only wave energy technology that produces fresh water directly from seawater by magnifying the pressure variations in ocean waves.
CETO contains no oils, lubricants, or offshore electrical components. CETO is built from components with a known subsea life of over 30 years.
Wave energy can be harnessed for permanent base load power and for fresh water desalination. The ratio of electrical generation to fresh water production can be quickly varied from 100% to 0% allowing for rapid variations in power demand.
CETO uses a great multiplicity of identical units each of which can be mass produced and containerized for shipping to anywhere in the world.

The $50m (Australian Dollars), project is also supported by a $12.5m grant from the West Australian government. Although capital costs for the initial project are high at about $10m per MW, this is expected to come down to between $6m and $7m for the second project, and will fall further in subsequent projects. Carnegie chief executive Michael Ottaviano says. “We reckon that we will be cheaper than wind.”

It will certainly be cheaper than diesel, which is why Carnegie has also been asked to conduct a feasibility study for a wave-energy facility to power a naval base near Exmouth, north of Perth. The base is currently off-grid and powered by diesel.

Carnegie Wave Energy’s 5MW commercial-scale wave-energy plant (CETO 3), will be the world’s largest and is to be installed next year at Garden Island, 50km (31 miles) south of Perth, in Western Australia. This will produce enough power for up to 3500 homes upon completion and will save an estimated 500,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions over its 20-year lifespan. Plus the construction of 25-30 more units is scheduled to be complete by 2011.

…… as the green future unfolds!

Tags: climate, environment, Everything Solar, Going Green, green, s waves, sea goddess, water, wind

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Going Green, Technology, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.