Friday 18/9/2009 Page: 16
A US-based renewable energy expert is bidding to construct WA's biggest wave energy power station off the coast at Yanchep. Perth native George Taylor, now chairman of a firm that builds wave energy facilities around the globe, said Perth had some of the world's best waves for generating electricity. Dr Taylor has already proposed a wave power station off Portland, Victoria, consisting of dozens of floating buoys capable of harvesting enough energy to power tens of thousands of homes.The entire WA coast south of Port Hedland also has seas ideally suited to wave energy Dr Taylor said. His company, Ocean Power Technologies, is overseeing similar green energy projects around the world, including Hawaii, the Orkney Islands and Oregon. But ironically, his birthplace has the best waves, he said. His design features stationary vertical buoys, tethered to the sea bed, with donut-shaped floats attached to them. Wave action causes the float to move up and down on the buoy, moving a hydraulic piston inside the buoy and generating pressure that can be transformed into electrical power.
Dr Taylor said wave data suggested a facility 5km off the coast at Yanchep could generate power about 55% of the time, compared with about 35% for many other wave sites. WA Sustainable Energy Association chief Ray Wills said WA was a promising location for wave energy because the waves built up momentum across several thousand kilometres of ocean.
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