The water desalination plant connected to the Perth Wave Energy Project – the world’s first grid-connected wave energy plant – has been switched on and is fully operational.
ASX-listed Carnegie Wave Energy announced the new milestone on Friday, seven months after the array of CETO 5 generators off Garden Island in Western Australia started sending wave-generated electricity into the local grid.
To coincide with the announcement, the company’s COO, Greg Allen, presented the plant’s first bottle of water to the 
state’s minister for water, Mia Davies, at the Australian Water Association’s Annual WA conference.
Carnegie’s reverse osmosis desalination pilot plant is fully integrated with the CETO wave energy power plant, meaning that it is capable of running both from grid power or directly from hydraulic power from Carnegie’s wave project, or a combination of both.
The containerised desal technology was manufactured and supplied by MAK Water Industrial Solutions (MAK Water), with Carnegie signing an agency agreement to act as the exclusive agent for MAK Water in South America earlier this year.
The agreement has now been extended to include remote islands to capitalise on the opportunity for high quality, containerised desalination and wave power solutions in these locations.
The first joint Carnegie/MAK Water island opportunity is currently underway at four sites on remote Indian Ocean Islands.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
This is all good stuff and a pretty good example of synergistic development. Good for the players who have worked long and hard to bring this about.
I wonder if wave energy is even worth it.
Batteries are crashing in price, maybe they will be able to store electrons for 5c/kWh soon. And solar panels are already producing electricity for 5c/kWh.
To achieve more renewable energy production we need to diversify renewable energy sources. Batteries do not produce energy.
That’s a fair question.
Unlike most such questions, however, this one can be answered. Carmegie Wave Energy Ltd is a listed public company (ASX code: CWE). If you think this approach to wave energy will be successful, you can buy shares. If you don’t, you can avoid buying the shares. Two or three years from now it will be clear whether you made the right decision or not.
Jacob presumably won’t be buying, and he could well be right. I don’t know, but I’m glad Carnegie is in there trying this additional approach.