Earlier this week, Portugal debuted the world’s first commercial wave energy farm. Wave energy at the Agucadoura station is converted into electricity with the use of three red “sea-snakes”, or cylindrical wave energy converters, that are attached to the seabed off Portugal’s northern coast. Energy captured by the sea-snakes is carried to an undersea cable station, where it is then fed into the electrical grid.
The devices will generate 2.25 MW of electricity— enough to power 1,500 homes. Ultimately, the wave power station will expand to produce up to 21 MW of power.
Unfortunately, wave power is not price competitive in Portugal at the moment. The €9m project was only made possible by the country’s feed-in tariff, which requires utilities to buy renewable energy from a wide range of producers. However, proponents of the farm believe that wave energy could be cost-efficient within 15 years.
Agucadoura’s farm is a only a small part of Portugal’s renewable energy plans, which include both the world’s largest wind farm and the world’s largest solar farm. The country hopes to generate 60 percent of its total energy from renewables by 2020.
More Posts on Alternative Energy:
- Wind-Powered Tall Ships Are Once Again Important As Oil Prices Hurt Trade
- 4 Reasons Why Germany Is A Renewable Energy Success Story
- Texas To Build Wind Power Superhighway
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
