Carnegie gets $2.5m ARENA funds for wave-based micro-grid

Perth-based wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy says it has been awarded a $2.5 million in funds from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to help fund what it says will be the world’s first microgram project combining wave energy, solar and battery storage.

The project – to be based at the Garden Island naval base off the coast of Fremantle – will combine Carnegie’s CETO 6 wave energy technology and the existing desalination plant with 2MW of solar PV and a 2MW/0.5MWh battery energy storage system.

The project, which will be commissioned in the first half of 2017, is designed to operate both “on-grid” and in “islander mode”.

Carnegie intends to use it as a template for its proposed microgrid business for islands and fringe of grid communities across the world. Earlier this year it announced a partnership with WA-based Energy Made Clean to try and corner a part of the multi-billion dollar global market for renewable energy microgrids.

It is also looking at micro-grid projects in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but says the WA project will be the first.

“The demonstration of this microgrid project will help drive the commercialisation of CETO and will be a model we will roll out to island nations around the world,” Carnegie’s CEO Dr Michael Ottaviano said in a statement.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said, the landmark project is expected to demonstrate the viability of integrating a renewable energy based microgrid with a utility-scale distribution network.

“ARENA is excited to help local companies, like Carnegie, develop new renewable energy solutions that have the potential to change the way the world generates power.”

ARENA will provide a grant of $700,000 for the $7.5 million project, and will follow this with $1.8 million of convertible note funding.

The ARENA convertible notes will prima facie be unsecured debt with 0% interest over a 6 year term and can be converted by ARENA to ordinary shares in Carnegie at a conversion price of $0.053 per share. The balance of funding will be provided by Carnegie equity and a project finance facility from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.