Australia Could Get 35% of Power Supply From Waves, Study Shows

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Australia could economically get 35 percent of its needs for continuous power supply from energy generated by waves, helping cut greenhouse gases, said Carnegie Corp., an Australian clean-energy technology company.

The country has a wave energy resource in near-shore areas where water is less than 25 meters deep of about 171,000 megawatts, Perth-based Carnegie said today, citing a report. That's about four times total installed power generating capacity, it said, citing research from RPS MetOcean, a unit of Abingdon, England-based RPS Group Plc.

Rising fossil fuel prices and increasing pressure to cut greenhouse pollution blamed for global warming are boosting demand for power produced from renewable sources such as the wind, waves and solar rays. Carnegie's CETO wave power technology is being used by a venture between Electricite de France SA and Renewable Energy Holdings Plc for projects in the Northern Hemisphere and on Reunion island in the Indian Ocean.

Australia's estimated wave power resource in deeper waters is about 500,000 megawatts, more than 10 times national installed capacity, Carnegie said in an e-mailed statement.

Carnegie, which holds the rights to own and operate all commercial CETO wave energy projects in the Southern Hemisphere, operates a test plant using the technology near Perth in Western Australia and is studying a project at Albany in the state's south. The CETO system sits on the seabed and carries high- pressure seawater ashore where it's used to produce either electricity or fresh water.

To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at amacdonaldsm@bloomberg.net