Augusta Margaret River Mail
Wednesday 29/11/2006 Page: 2
ENERGY company Renewable Energy Holdings has had discussions with Landcorp and Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan with a view to deploying a wave energy system at Gracetown.
REH owns and runs windfarms in Europe, and a spokesman said the company looked forward to explaining its Western Australian developed wave energy system to local people.
Using wave energy to generate electricity and fresh water could be a reality for the town in three years. "The area is ideally suited to wave energy," he said. "REH's CETO technology is ideally suited as it produces both fresh water and electricity.
It floats below the surface, would be invisible from the shore and it will not be deployed in any surf breaks. The worst thing that could happen to it, he said, was a leak of high-pressure seawater.
In early 2005 a wave energy converter unit was launched off the company's test facility on North Mole Drive on Fremantle Harbour. The unit, called CETO after a sea goddess in Greek mythology, was sunk on demarcated seabed about 300m from the Rous Head test facility.
In May, it was announced the CETO wave energy converter had produced electrical power and desalinated water good enough to bottle. CETO was designed and developed by Western Australian company Seapower Pacific Pty Ltd, which was acquired by REH in 2005.
The CETO pipe pumps pressurised seawater ashore to drive a turbine to produce electricity or a reverse-osmosis filter to produce fresh water. Each unit can produce enough power for about 100 homes.
The commercialisation of wave energy units has occurred mostly in the United States. China, India and Japan also are investing in wave energy research and development.
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