The first wave energy converter (WEC) devices may now by deployed at the Wave Hub test site following approval by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).
The MMO has announced it has approved an application from OceanEnergy Ltd to deploy and test an OEB35 OceanEnergy buoy WEC for a period of up to three years. The energy buoy will be anchored and connected to the Wave Hub 16 kilometres off the north coast of Cornwall and is capable of generating up to 1 megwatt of electricity.
Wave Hub is a grid-connected offshore facility in South West England for the large scale testing of technologies that generate electricity from the power of the waves.
The MMO is responsible for licensing offshore generating stations including wind farms, wave and tidal devices with a capacity between 1 and 100 megawatts. More information is available in our marine licensing section. Developers may also need to lease relevant areas of the seabed from The Crown Estate.
In the past seven years £100 million has been invested in the South West marine energy industry, including the Wave Hub development and in January 2012 the region was designated as the UK’s first marine energy park by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
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Press release, January 02, 2013; Image: wave hub