EU’s Horizon Europe has awarded €19 million (USD $21 million) to Portugal’s Ondas de Peniche (ONDEP) project to deploy a 2 megawatt (MW) wave energy array featuring four WaveRoller wave energy converters off the coast of Peniche.
The ONDEP project will start in October 2024 and last 5.5 years, from design and manufacturing to testing, deployment, and operation. The pilot wave farm is expected to be installed and connected to the grid and to generate electricity for eight years after the project’s official end.
“This project builds on two decades of hard work developing WaveRoller into a commercial asset,” said Christoper Ridgewell, CEO of AW Energy, the lead technology provider for ONDEP. “We’re excited to work on this collaboration together with the other partners to create a new industry in Europe.”
ONDEP hopes to address the technical challenges of future large-scale wave farms, ensuring the technology’s reliability and scalability. The project also aims to establish a comprehensive, end-to-end European supply chain to support the deployment of GW-scale wave energy across Europe and beyond, marking a significant step towards the industrialization of wave energy.
By 2030, ONDEP plans to unlock the potential for 11 wave energy farms across eight countries on four continents, with a total cumulative capacity of 83MW. By 2035, the project aims to demonstrate a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of less than 100€/MWh, paving the way for a sustainable blue economy.
“Wave energy is the largest untapped renewable energy resource in the world. The ONDEP project is poised to be among the first pilot wave farms globally, advancing this new industry to an industrial level. It will pave the way towards a zero-carbon future,” commented Rémi Gruet, CEO of Ocean Energy Europe.
Coordinated by Queen’s University Belfast, the project includes 14 partners from across Europe covering the entire wave energy value chain.
