Australian ocean energy developer Carnegie Clean Energy has put a newly opened U.S. wave energy test facility on its list of potential sites for a future demonstration of its wave energy converter technology, as the company progresses its deployment roadmap.
The Australian company believes to be well positioned to become a future user of PacWave South, a recently opened grid-connected, open-ocean test facility off the coast of Oregon, and will continue to pursue opportunities to demonstrate CETO at the site.
PacWave South provides dedicated infrastructure for testing wave-energy technologies in the ocean while allowing devices to be connected to the electricity grid. The facility’s opening gives Carnegie another potential location for advancing its wave-energy technology as it moves toward larger-scale deployments.
The potential U.S. demonstration forms part of Carnegie’s wider CETO development program. The company is currently deploying a scaled CETO prototype at the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) in Europe through its ACHIEVE program.
The Australian firm expects the next stage of the program to involve full commercial-scale CETO units at an international test site. The company has identified BiMEP, the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), and PacWave among the potential locations for this phase of deployment.
CETO is Carnegie’s wave-energy converter, designed to convert the energy contained in ocean waves into electricity. The system operates beneath the ocean surface and is intended to capture wave energy without placing the primary energy-conversion equipment above the waterline.
The potential use of PacWave would give the Australian developer access to a grid-connected open-ocean testing environment in the U.S. as it seeks to advance the technology toward commercial deployment. However, the company has not announced PacWave as the confirmed location for its next CETO deployment.
This means that the Oregon facility currently sits among the sites Carnegie is considering as part of its longer-term deployment pathway. The firm’s immediate deployment milestone remains the scaled CETO prototype being tested through the ACHIEVE program at BiMEP.
The Australian firm is also pursuing opportunities for CETO in the U.S. beyond the PacWave facility. Carnegie has confirmed it is working with Chugachmiut, a consortium of Native tribes in Southcentral Alaska, on preliminary wave energy surveys examining local marine conditions and the potential use of the technology in remote coastal and Indigenous communities.
The company views the U.S. as a significant potential market for wave energy, with the work there forming part of its broader strategy to develop CETO for commercial applications.
With PacWave now open, the firm has identified another potential pathway for demonstrating its wave energy converter in an open-ocean, grid-connected environment.
The next step will be to determine whether the Oregon facility will become the site for a future CETO deployment, as Carnegie progresses from its current scaled prototype toward commercial-scale systems.
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