Swedish-Israeli wave power company starts work on second commercial array

Nasdaq-listed wave energy hopeful Eco Wave Power has begun the installation of its second grid-connected, commercial renewable energy generator, this time in Israel – where the company is based.

The Swedish-Israeli company, which was founded in Tel Aviv more than a decade ago, said this week that it had finalised production of all of the “floaters” required for the project, and was starting to install them on the sea wall in the Port of Jaffa.

Eco Wave Power’s “floaters” – the blue paddle-like structures pictured in the image above – work by converting the rising and falling motion of waves into energy.

As the company’s website explains it, the movement of the floaters compresses and decompresses hydraulic pistons which transmit bio-degradable hydraulic fluid into land located “accumulators.”

In the accumulators, building pressure rotates a hydraulic motor, which rotates the generator, and then the electricity is transferred into the grid, via an inverter. The fluid, meanwhile, flows back into the hydraulic fluid tank, where it is then re-used, creating a closed circular system.

Another benefit of the technology compared to other wave power generator designs is that the floaters are installed from the land side, removing the need for the ships and divers often required for offshore wave energy installations.

Eco Wave’s technology, which can generate electricity from wave heights of 0.5 meters, is also controlled and monitored by a smart automation, which detects when waves are too high or rough and raises the floaters to above the water level until conditions improve.

The 100kW Port of Jaffa project – called EWP-EDF One, due to it being a joint venture with Electricite De France (EDF) – will comprise 10 floater units which, once installed, will be tested in real conditions, before the official connection of the conversion unit, which is already installed onsite, to the Israeli national grid.

Eco Wave Power said the system functionality and capacity tests for the Israel project were expected to be conducted by the end of the second quarter of this year.

“The installation of the first floater is a significant progress toward the first grid-connected wave energy array installation in Israel,” said Eco Wave Power CEO Inna Braverman.

“Preparation for the installation of all remaining floaters on the external side of the Jaffa Port breakwater is in advanced stages and we are relishing… the prospect of being operative soon in the Mediterranean waves.

“Our goal is to generate electricity during the third quarter of this year,” Braverman added. “This is a key milestone in the overall development of the Eco Wave Power technology, and we believe that the results are expected to enable us to take important steps toward the commercial rollout of our pioneering technology.”

Eco Wave Power’s first commercial array – the first 100KW of a planned and contracted 5MW power station – was installed in 2016 on the east side of Gibraltar, at a former World War II Ammunition Jetty.

The company claims it is the only grid-connected wave energy array in the world, operating through a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement).

It’s only challenger for that title might be Carnegie Clean Energy’s on-again, off-again Garden Island microgrid, in Western Australia, which is supplying power to Australia’s largest naval base – but so far just from the solar and battery storage component and not yet from the company’s CETO wave power generators.