World-leading Cornish Wave Hub takes shape

Pic credit: North News & Pictures Ltd

The world's largest offshore wave energy testing facility will be up and running by summer, according to the developers behind the pioneering Cornish Wave Hub.

The South West Regional Development Agency (RDA), which has played a key role in the development of the £42m project, today released an update confirming that wave energy devices will be able to connect to the grid-using hub within the next few months.

The agency said work is nearing completion on the hub itself, a van-sized rigid steel structure weighing about 12 tonnes that will sit on the sea bed at a depth of about 50 metres. It will effectively act as a giant plug socket, allowing at least four different wave energy generators to connect back to the grid through the hub.

The cabling to connect the hub to the mainland and to the wave generators will also be completed within the next few months, after Hartlepool-based JDR Cable Systems confirmed that work on the armoured 25km sub-sea cable is well advanced.

A spokesman for the RDA told BusinessGreen.com that it expected to begin installation work for the facility in July or August, dependent on an adequate weather window.

With work also under way on a new electricity substation at Hayle on the north Cornwall coast, the team behind the project is hoping to undertake testing throughout the autumn and begin installing the first wave-generation device next year.

Ocean Power Technologies was confirmed last year as the first company to take out a berth at the Wave Hub and is expected to install a new version of its PowerBuoy system at the facility.

The spokesman for the RDA said that talks were ongoing with a number of other wave energy firms about them using the facility, although deals are yet to be confirmed.