WavEC has joined forces with other Portuguese institutions to promote testing of innovative wave and tidal technologies.
CEiiA, +ATLANTIC CoLAB, Forum Oceano, INESC TEC and WavEC have created OceanACT, a 100% Portuguese consortium that aims to have a development and testing centre up and running in 2023.
The OceanACT-Atlantic Lab for Future Technologies will be a development, test, demonstration, and qualification centre responsible for managing and boosting the offshore demonstration infrastructures available in the country.
Antonio Sarmento, president of WavEC and chief of the OceanACT Consortium, said: “The ocean will be the new frontier of knowledge and economy in the 21st century and this requires the development, testing and validation of a wide range of technologies and suppliers.
“Several European initiatives to create networks of oceanic test centres point in that direction.
“Portugal must be at the forefront of this movement and thus help the national value chain to anticipate its possible supplies, the development of industrial property, and the creation of qualified jobs.”
Portugal has hosted the tests of several innovative ocean renewable energy technologies, such as the Pico Island wave energy plant, the Archimedes Waveswing – AWS, the Pelamis, the WindFloat prototype, and the Waveroller.
Soon, CorPower’s HiWave-5 wave energy demonstration project will also be implemented in Agucadoura.