The Wave to Energy and Water (W2EW) project is undertaken by a consortium of partners – Vryhof Anchors, Fiellberg, Energia Mediterranea and Wavepiston – with the support of the European Union’s Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) programme. The consortium has signed an agreement with PLOCAN to test a combined solution for power generation and water desalination: a full-scale wave energy system with a capacity of 150 kW and the ability to produce 28,000 m3 of desalinated water per year.
The signing of the agreement took place at ASTICAN and was attended by the director of the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and the Information Society (ACIISI), Carlos Andrés Navarro Martínez, the director of the Industry and Energy Department of the Government Delegation in the Canary Islands, Eloísa Moreno, the directors of the consortium partners, and the director of PLOCAN, José Joaquín Hernández Brito. They then visited ASTICAN’s facilities where the wave power system is being assembled.
For this project the consortium, consisting of Vryhof Anchors, Fiellberg, Energia Mediterranea and Wavepiston, plans to bring together the required multidisciplinary technologies to demonstrate the benefits of a combined wave energy system for power generation and water desalination, and aims to develop the first commercial applications on islands and remote coastal communities.
Wavepiston CEO Michael Henriksen stressed after the signing that the PLOCAN test facilities and Gran Canaria are an ideal place to demonstrate the W2EW system. The island has a very favourable climate with strong but not extreme waves and PLOCAN’s offshore platform reduces infrastructure costs and benefits from the great support for ocean energy in the Canary Islands.
Senol Ozmutlu, Projects Director at Vryhof, pointed out that “the combination of a power generation and water desalination system, at a competitive price, makes this project of great interest for the Canary Islands and for demonstrating the system at PLOCAN”.
The director of ACIISI, Carlos Navarro, highlighted the conditions of the test site, which provides technology developers with an environment that allows them to learn, demonstrate and produce experimental evidence and to verify the performance of their products. Hernández Brito recalled that PLOCAN and Wavepiston had previously concluded a similar agreement on another project, Competitive Wave Energy on Islands, supported by the EU’s SME Instrument, noting that W2EW will be “the natural continuation of this project and that we could thus mutually benefit from the good relationship already established”.
