UK firm Ocean Power Delivery (OPD) has won an order with a Portuguese consortium, led by Enersis, to build the world’s first commercial wave-farm to generate electricity from ocean waves.
The €8 million project will have an installed capacity of 2.25 MW and the initial phase will consist of three 750 kW Pelamis P-750 machines located 5 km off Portugal’s northern coast, near Póvoa de Varzim. The project has been partly financed by a special feed in tariff established by the Portuguese government to support wave energy along with a €1.25 million grant provided by the Agência de Inovação.
A letter of intent has also been issued to order a further 30 Pelamis machines before the end of 2006, subject to satisfactory performance of the initial phase.
The prototype for the machines was launched in February 2004 and is currently still under test in Orkney, Scotland