GROWING PAINS ON THE BOUNDING MAIN

A setback for wave power technology; Projects for wind and wave energy beset by technical snags and dwindling investment
Patrick Blum, March 15, 2009 (International Herald Tribune)

SUMMARY
Portugal is discovering the challenges of working with New Energy’s cutting edge ocean technologies.

The first commercial-scale wave energy installation in the world started sending power to Portugal’s grid in September 2008.

It was composed of 3 Pelamis Wave Power generators, had a capacity of 2.25 megawatts and cost ~$11.5 million.

The 3 generators were disconnected in November and towed ashore for repairs. There were buoyancy problems and other “technical” issues.

Babcock & Brown, a key project financier, is now being forced by the global credit crunch to sell off assets, including the wave power project, to pay down debt. The Portuguese partners (utility Energias de Portugal and electrical engineering company Efacec) have pulled back.

Pelamis does not know when there will be money to put the generators back into service.

The Pelamis Wave Power wave energy generator. (click to enlarge)

Undaunted by technological challenges, Portugal’s EDP is now pushing ahead with an unproven form of floating offshore wind turbines in partnership with U.S. developer Principle Power.

Floating offshore wind installations are estimated to be 50-to-100% more costly than onshore installations but equally more productive. The undertaking could cost more than $35 million but EDP intends to have an installation producing by 2012.

If the experience with Pelamis is any indication, it will cost more and take longer.

Portugal’s Wave Energy Center (WavEC) continues to make plans. It presently has projects involoving systems from a variety of companies (including WaveRoller of Finland, Ocean Power Technologies of the United States and Wavebob of Ireland) in the works.

The Principle Power deep ocean floating turbine. (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
- The difficulty of dealing with the demanding ocean environment has been the main impediment to the development of wave energy. Many projects that work well in test situations find that materials do not stand up to the ceaselessly assaultive storms and corrosive salt air at sea.
- The Pelamis project was expected to expand to 28 generators with a 21-megawatt capacity. Wave energy was an ideal fit for Portugal’s coast, where the ocean is productive but not intolerant.

Any wave energy potential over 15-to-20 is economically feasible. (click to enlarge)

- Portugal, with no Old Energy reserves, has been aggressively developing New Energy. Its goal is to get 60% of is power from New Energy sources by 2020.(See IS PORTUGAL THE NEW ENERGY FUTURE?)
- Developing New Energy is inevitably challenging. The first U.S. onshore wind installation in California’s Altamont Pass ran into devastating and costly problems with migrating birds. But lessons were learned. The second U.S. wind installation, in California’s San Gorgonio Pass, had no such problems and continues to expand.
- Costs and time factors for new technologies are always more than estimated and unpredictabilities always intrude. California’s first solar power plants go back to the early 1990s but were put on hold for a decade and a half by low natural gas prices. Renewed interest in the technology over the last 2-to-3 years may or may not come to fruition now because of the same obstacle.
- New Energies may or may not provide a positive Energy-Returned-On-Energy-Invested (EROEI) early in their development. Some now question whether wave energy will ever have a positive EROEI.

click to enlarge

- Floating offshore wind turbines are bigger and more costly but can theoretically harvest the very high-quality, consistent winds of deep ocean environments where regulatory resistance and intermittencies are not expected to be significant factors.
- Deep ocean offshore development is widely considered an inevitable progression for the wind industry and Portugal wants to reap the rewards of being at the forefront of the technological development.
- Cost and time are less predictable than the reward for conquering these technologies. The reward is nothing less, according to U.S. President Barack Obama, than economic dominance in the 21st century.

Farther out on the cutting edge: Floating offfshore wind turbine with wave energy generator attached. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Max Carcas, spokesman, Pelamis Wave Power, on the technical glitches: "Like all things new, you have niggles to work through, and we continue to do that."
Anthony Kennaway, spokesman, Babcock & Brown: "Babcock & Brown are in process of winding down and we're looking at offers for all our assets…Pelamis is part of that. All our assets are for sale. We are not putting any more money into the project."
- Max Carcas, Pelamis, on when the project will restart: "As soon as things are resolved," he said. "Could be next week. Could be anything."
- Antonio Sarmento, director, Wave Energy Center (WavEC): "We assumed there would be no critical technical issues…Also we assumed there would be no environmental impact and that the energy would be relatively cheap. So we were optimistic…It's an educated guess. We are still guessing. When you pick up a new technology and look at the future it's difficult to say what will be."
- Hugo Chandler, New Energy analyst, International Energy Agency (IEA): "Part of the problem is the absence of data…Countries are still at an early stage and don't want to reveal real costs…the indications are that [wave energy] is considerably more expensive than other technologies."
- António Mexia, CEO, EDP: "Offshore wind is one of our key innovation priorities…The development of floating foundations for wind turbines is a prerequisite to the development of offshore wind farms world-wide, as areas in which the sea bed is less than 50 meters deep are scarce and fixed structures in deeper waters are economically not feasible…"