The conceptual design and site project study was 50% funded by the Irish government’s Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland under the ocean energy prototype research and development program.
The two studies, which assessed a number of potential near-shore sites along the west coast of Ireland, were undertaken by RPS Consulting Engineers.
According to the company, potential sites were assessed through a detailed site evaluation study considering several key factors including wave resource, grid connectivity, constructability and environmental sensitivities.
The company said that the study identified two promising sites for a commercial demonstration project, and a site specific conceptual design was then developed that looked at the complete CETO system design from the near-shore CETO unit array to the onshore power plant.
This concluded that a CETO wave energy project is viable with existing Irish ocean energy incentives including the 500MW ocean energy target, grant support and the ocean energy feed-in-tariff, Carnegie said.
