One of the Irish project partners, Ocean Energy Ltd are providing their base wave energy conversion technology, the OEBuoy as a platform for European Universities and Companies to test their components on as part of the €4.5m European Research Project - CORES funded by Commissioner Geoghegan - Quinn’s department.

The project is being co-ordinated by the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre (HMRC) in UCC and its aim is to further develop components required by the wave energy sector as it evolves such as power generators, power control systems, instrumentation, telemetry and grid interface technology. The total amount of EU funding for the four Irish participants is €1.4m. The other countries represented in the project by eight other partners are Portugal, UK, Spain, Germany Denmark and Italy.

Dr Tony Lewis, Director of HMRC and Coordinator of the project. said that it represents important research collaboration between University research groups and Industry in Europe and will lead to increased understanding of component behaviour to accelerate wave energy development. The work in Galway docks sees the coming together, integration and shore testing of all the partners research concepts and components. The next step after successful shore testing is to take the completed unit onto the SEAI Galway Bay Wave Energy Test site for winter sea trials, proving its generation capabilities and collecting valuable real world data.

For more information on the CORES project, please visit http://www.fp7-cores.eu/

Picture L-R: Dr Raymond Alcorn, Research Manager, HMRC, Dr Tony Lewis, Director, HMRC, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research Innovation and Science, Michael Whelan, Technical Director Ocean Energy Ltd, John McCarthy, CEO Ocean Energy Ltd

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