Australian Wind & Wave Energy Platform a World First
Wood Group Kenny wins a 3-year Marine Power Technologies Pty Ltd (MPT ) contract for development of the Energy Island concept
The triangular shaped Energy Island will comprise six oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy devices and an offshore wind turbine assembly and will be capable of generating up to 10 megawatts of power. It is envisaged that six or more Energy Islands may be linked together to create an Energy Farm, which is estimated could supply power to 16,500 Australian households per year.
Wood Group Kenny's initial eight-month scope of work under the contract will be carried out in two parts. The first part will involve a data gathering exercise covering a wide range of environmental and technical issues, and the second part will involve conceptual study work to define the layout and configuration of the overall Energy Island assembly.
Subsequent phases of Wood Group Kenny's involvement in this project will focus on identifying opportunities for installing Energy Farms along Australia's southern coastline, where there are significant wind and wave energy resources. The Energy Island concept will then be further optimised with the option to very simply convert the offshore generated electrical energy, and use the same to convert sea water into potable fresh water, and pipe to shore, thereby eliminating vast current desalination problems in Australia.
''This contract award strengthens Wood Group's commitment to diversifying its long-term oil and gas expertise into the emerging global renewable energy market,” comments Steve Wayman, CEO of Wood Group Kenny.
Wood Group Kenny is the world's largest specialist subsea, pipeline and riser engineering and management contractor employing more than 2300 people worldwide, part of international energy services company, Wood Group.
MPT’s Board and founders have 150 years of expertise among them, and has worked hard to exploit offshore energy sources since offshore installations clearly have the advantage of not competing for valuable land, and also tend to have more predictable wind and wave/tidal patterns.