CalWave Power Technologies Inc. said it has concluded its open-ocean wave energy pilot after 10 months of operation off the coast of San Diego, Calif., reporting a more than 99% system uptime during the test.
The project deployed in September 2021 and was supported by a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) award, with the goal to demonstrate CalWave’s xWave technology as a cost-effective, sustainable solution for energy generation. CalWave said this pilot verified its xWave system as effective for overcoming the key challenges of performance, reliability, survivability and cost.
The pilot “x1” device has been recovered and decommissioned. The device reportedly achieved high performance as targeted and predicted by CalWave’s advanced and laboratory-validated hydrodynamic simulations. The onboard controller took over full autonomous operations for roughly 80% of the operating time, leading to the greater than 99% system uptime. The power and data were exported via subsea cable to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO) research pier.
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The fully submerged xWave design enabled the technology to survive several major storms, including two representative of the largest storms in a typical 10-year period for a utility-scale system, CalWave said. The wave load management mechanisms, comparable to pitch and yaw control in modern wind turbines, allowed for a rapid and effective reduction of storm loads on all parts of the system.
The x1’s hull was protected by anti-corrosion and anti-biofouling coatings, in addition to sacrificial anodes, which added cathodic protection against corrosion for uncoated surfaces. The uncoated surfaces experiences bio-fouling, growth was not detected on moving interfaces and had no impact on operations.
In collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) Triton Initiative — a project funded by WPTO to research environmental monitoring technologies and methods — the x1 was observed with a Boxfish 360 video camera and three sound monitoring tools: Integral Consulting Inc.’s noise spotter buoy; a drifting hydrophone; and three long-term, bottom-mounted hydrophones.
Based on its reliability during operations, the deployment was extended from six to 10 months and ended as required by CalWave’s DOE contract.
“Our pilot of the x1 provided us with critical results necessary to advance on the path towards commercialization,” said Marcus Lehmann, CalWave’s chief executive officer and co-founder.
Findings from the pilot will be used to inform CalWave’s next grid-connected deployment, to occur at the federally approved, 20 MW PacWave wave energy test site off the coast of Newport, Ore. CalWave said the results of this pilot are critical for the advancement of CalWave’s x100 and x800 utility-scale classes of the xWave.
“Marine energy technologies — like CalWave’s xWave — hold incredible potential to help transform our energy system in numerous ways, from serving as a resource on our nation’s grid to helping remote and coastal communities reduce their reliance on fossil fuels to powering ocean exploration and observation systems,” said Jennifer Garson, DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office director. “CalWave’s successful deployment in California marks a critical step in their pathway to commercializing their wave energy system and is an important step forward in the marine energy industry’s efforts to demonstrate and deploy these technologies.”
In January 2022, CalWave was awarded $7.5 million from DOE’s latest $25 million commitment to accelerate ocean energy development to further develop its xWave technology for use on local energy grids and microgrids. CalWave has been contracted to build a 100 kW version of the xWave architecture for a two-year deployment off the coast of Oregon at PacWave South, a grid-connected, pre-permitted wave energy test facility.
