Sweden-based wave energy developer CorPower Ocean plans to deploy a 5 MW wave energy project at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland. Scheduled for installation in 2029 at EMEC’s grid-connected Billia Croo test site, the project will form the largest wave energy array in the U.K.

The system will consist of 14 C5 wave energy converters engineered to operate for up to 15 years. Each unit has a 9 m diameter spherical hull coupled with the company’s WaveSpring technology to amplify motion and power capture from the marine environment. The negative spring function of the WaveSpring design provides a threefold increase in energy production for a given buoy size, strongly increasing revenue to cost.

Source: CorPower Ocean

The point absorber-type wave energy converters are connected to the seabed using a tensioned mooring system. The composite buoy, interacting with wave motion, drives a power take off inside the buoy that converts the mechanical energy into electricity.

CorPower Ocean previously tested its C3 wave energy converters at EMEC’s Scapa Flow test site in 2018. Since then, the developer successfully demonstrated its latest C4 device off the coast of Portugal, surviving storm waves over 18 m and providing electricity to the Portuguese grid.