UCC led EU FP7 Funded Wave Energy Project is being deployed today (March 4th 2011) in Sustainable Energy of Ireland/Marine Institute Galway Bay Test Site. The unit was craned into the water in Galway dock, with towout scheduled for early Saturday morning. The 3.5 year Project with 13 EU Partners culminates with a 3 month Sea Trial of the Technology in Galway Bay.
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 acronymed CORES funded by Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn's department. The Commissioner has an interest in the subject area and visited the project late in 2010.
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. UCC have had a team of Researchers and Engineers on site in Galway doing the final integration and testing before towout. After deployment, UCC will also run the 3 month research programme. 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.
For more information on the CORES project, please visit http://www.fp7-cores.eu/
Picture: Unit in Galway Dock today (March 4th 2011)
