Australia: Carnegie Signs Cooperation Agreement with Water Corporation

Wave energy developer, Carnegie Wave Energy Limited, announced the signing of a Cooperation Agreement with the Water Corporation of Western Australia to support Carnegie’s ground breaking wave powered desalination pilot plant.

The Cooperation Agreement allows the Water Corporation to provide support to Carnegie for its wave powered seawater desalination pilot plant. The wave powered desalination pilot, which forms part of Carnegie’s Perth Wave Energy Project, will be the first wave powered desalination project in the world. It will be located on Garden Island, Western Australia, home to Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling.

The Water Corporation is globally recognised as a leader in seawater desalination. It built the first large scale, mainland desalination plant in Australia in 2006, the Perth Seawater Desalination Plant, located in Kwinana, south of Perth which produces 45 billion litres of fresh drinking water a year. Earlier this year, construction of the Water Corporation’s second mainland desalination plant, the Southern Seawater Desalination Plant, located south of Perth at Binningup, was completed, which has the capacity to , supply 100 billion litres of freshwater to Perth. Combined, both plants are able to supply approximately half of Perth’s drinking water needs.

Carnegie’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Dr Michael Ottaviano, said:

“We are pleased to have the support of the Water Corporation with our project. Water Corporation are innovators in the field of seawater desalination and Carnegie’s wave powered desalination pilot will be a world first.”

The Water Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Sue Murphy, said:

“Seawater desalination is an important part of Perth’s long term water supply solution and we are focused on minimising the environmental footprint of our desalination operations. Carnegie’s wave powered seawater desalination technology offers a novel and promising approach to achieving desalinated freshwater with zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The CETO desalination pilot will be co-located with Carnegie’s Perth Wave Energy Project on Garden Island, integrating off-the-shelf reverse osmosis desalination technology with the Perth Project’s infrastructure. Key tasks ahead of construction of the desalination pilot plant include completing detailed design, securing environmental approvals and the potential integration of the construction and commissioning of the desalination pilot into the delivery of Perth Wave Energy Project. The latter will be cost effective as it will allow both projects to be constructed at the same time and then commissioned sequentially. The desalination pilot project is supported by $1.27m in Federal Government grant funding from AusIndustry’s Clean Technology Innovation Program.

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Press release, August 27, 2013; Image: carnegie