Renowned for its record-breaking waves which attract surfers from all over the world, Portugal’s coastline may produce as much as 15 gigawatts of wave energy.
Sweden-based CorPower Ocean has secured a €40m grant from the EU Innovation Fund to build a wave energy farm off the coast of northern Portugal that may power as many as 7,500 homes.
The VianaWave energy farm will consist of 30 so-called wave energy converters, which are expected to generate around 30 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable electricity each year. Currently a pilot project, VianaWave will become fully operational by 2029 at the latest, according to the company. Its light-weight and low-cost buoys absorb energy stored in ocean waves, which is converted into electricity by generators inside the device.
Thanks to its Atlantic coastline, Portugal may be able to generate as much as 15 gigawatt of energy from waves a year, according to an EU-funded study in 2023, which put the country at the forefront of the global wave energy sector.
CorPower Ocean commercial director Kevin Rebenius called the grant a “pivotal milestone” for his firm and the wave energy sector as a whole.
“VianaWave shows that wave energy is ready to scale. With strong support from the Innovation Fund and the Portuguese ecosystem, we are accelerating the transition to a sustainable, resilient energy system while delivering local economic value,” Rebenius said.
€40bn
The EU Innovation Fund is deploying around €40bn between 2021 and 2030 in commercially viable innovative low-carbon technology projects. The fund is financed through the European emissions trading system, which requires polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.
The European funding will not only cover wave farm technology and infrastructure but also support “significant investment” in onshore facilities, CorPower Ocean said. These include the firm’s operational base at the Port of Viana do Castelo in northern Portugal, and boosting electrical infrastructure in the coastal cities of Agucadoura and Póvoa de Varzim.
“VianaWave surpasses the state-of-the-art by overcoming wave energy’s historical cost and durability barriers,” the Innovation Fund said in a report on its website about CorPower Ocean. It went on to say the project “strengthens European energy security by reducing fossil fuel dependency and advancing industrial decarbonisation”.
CorPower Ocean expects to spend three-quarters of the project’s lifetime value in Portugal, which it said will support the local economy through the creation of high-quality engineering, construction and operations jobs.
