EU Grants Over $20M for Pilot Wave Energy Farm Offshore Portugal
September 6, 2024
The Ondas de Peniche (ONDEP) project has been awarded $21 million (€19 million) from the EU’s Horizon Europe funding program to deploy a 2 MW wave energy array featuring four WaveRoller wave energy converters.
The ONDEP project will start in October 2024 and last for five and a half years, encompassing the full spectrum of project activities - from design and manufacturing to testing, deployment, and operation.
Set in the surfing hub of Peniche, Portugal, the pilot wave farm will be installed and connected to the grid and will continue generating electricity for an additional eight years after the project’s official end.
“This project builds on two decades of hard work developing WaveRoller into a commercial asset. We’re excited to work on this collaboration together with the other partners to create a new industry in Europe,” said Christoper Ridgewell, CEO of AW-Energy, the lead technology provider for ONDEP.
ONDEP’s mission over the next five and a half years is to address the technical challenges of future large-scale wave farms, ensuring the technology’s reliability and scalability.
The project will also aim 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.
“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,” added Rémi Gruet, CEO of Ocean Energy Europe.
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 83 MW.
Looking further ahead to 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. This could also lead to the creation of up to 500,000 jobs across Europe, reinforcing Europe’s leadership in renewable energy.
Coordinated by Queen’s University Belfast, the project includes 14 partners from across Europe, including leading companies and research institutions. These partners, coming from Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and the UK, bring together expertise covering the entire wave energy value chain.
