The $3.4 million MoorPower™ Scaled Demonstrator Project is officially underway with Carnegie Clean Energy, the Blue Economy CRC and experts in the field.
Global aquaculture is moving operations further offshore, presenting a challenge to access clean renewable and reliable offshore energy. Moored feeding barge facilities rely on diesel fuel generators for power out at sea, leading to high operating costs and carbon emissions. The MoorPower™ project aims to solve this problem by leveraging the surrounding environment and convert wave motion into electricity – an untapped clean energy source flowing around moored barges.
The MoorPower™ project concept was developed by Carnegie Clean Energy with the goal of decarbonising the energy needs of offshore operations, particularly in the aquaculture industry. MoorPower™ is similar in concept to Carnegie’s ‘CETO’ technology, but instead consisting of a submerged buoy which sits a few metres below the surface of the ocean, moving with the motion of the waves. This orbital motion drives a power take-off (PTO) system, which converts the wave motion into electrical energy.
The project was officially launched on 20 October 2021 and will run over the next two years. Carnegie Clean Energy will operate the MoorPower™ technology at their research facility in North Fremantle, Western Australia. The project is funded with support from the Blue Economy CRC and in collaboration with partners Huon Aquaculture, Tassal Group, DNV GL Australia, University of Tasmania, Climate KIC, Australian Ocean Energy Group, AMC Search, University of Queensland and ACS Australia.
The project is underway at ACS Australia with prototyping of composite components and material processes being developed. We look forward to sharing more with you, so please stay tuned for updates on the project as we progress through the coming milestones!
Webinar hosted by the Blue Economy CRC on “Decarbonising Offshore Aquaculture with Carnegie Clean Energy’s MoorPower™” provides more detail on the technology being developed:
References
- https://www.carnegiece.com/carnegie-launches-moorpower-project/
- https://blueeconomycrc.com.au/launch-of-moorpower-scaled-demonstrator-project/
The team at ACS Australia is always happy to answer any questions you have about the project and the work we do, please don’t hesitate to contact us anytime!
Recently, AMTIL (Australian Manufacturing Technology Institute Limited) published the project in their February 2022 edition of AMT Magazine, please find linked here, or a snippet of pages 96-97 below:
Update August 2023 – AMT Magazine Aug/Sep 2023 p. 93: https://amtil.com.au/amt/2023-amt-magazines/amt-aug-sep-2023/