The £42 million Wave Hub marine energy test centre off the UK Cornwall coast is ‘plugged in’ and open for business, it was announced today
Speaking at the RenewableUK conference in Glasgow, general manager Guy Lavender said that the seabed socket to which wave power devices can be connected was plugged into the grid for the first time yesterday.
“We’ve been continually testing the integrity of the whole system during the installation process but yesterday was the first time it was fully energised and plugged in to the grid,” he said. “From today the system will be permanently energised and monitored, so Wave Hub is well and truly open for business.”
The penultimate stage of Wave Hub’s installation 16 km off the coast should be complete today, when the subsea cable linking to the shore is secured with concrete ‘mattresses’ fixing it to the seabed.
The final stage next week will be to install a marker buoy to indicate Wave Hub’s position above water. The site will have four berths, each 1 km x 2 km, for the testing of marine energy devices up to a total capacity of 20 MW.
The Wave Hub project has been developed by the South West Regional Development Agency (RDA), which is due to be abolished next March as part of the Coalition Government’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’.
Who will now own the test centre is now being discussed, says Lavender, but it is secure for the moment.
“The future of Wave Hub and its ongoing operation are not in doubt, and the project is fully funded,” he told the RenewableUK conference.
Wave Hub’s first customer will be Ocean Power Technologies, which plans to connect up its PowerBuoy wave energy converted to the seabed socket for testing.