Australia's First Wave Power Plant Ready to Roll

[Doondoo]

PORT KEMBLA, Australia -- Australia's cities are drought-parched and its desert outback drenched by floods, but climate change has not yet killed the country's famed surf beaches, or their promise of clean eco-power.

Australia's first commercial wave-generated power station will in weeks begin supplying homes south of Sydney with electricity and fresh drinking water, courtesy of the sea.

"The energy in waves is the densest of any natural sources of energy. It's pretty much always there and it doesn't go away like sun and wind do," John Bell, the Chief Finance Officer from station developer Energetech told Reuters.

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Electricity is generated when waves wash into a funnel facing the ocean, driving air through a pipe and into a turbine capable of pumping 500kw of clean power each day into the local grid. The A$6 million ($4.7 million) floating plant, built to withstand a 1-in-100 year storm, can also desalinate 2,000 litres of drinking water each day for almost as many homes as it powers.

Bell said the plant was the prototype for a larger installation of 10 stations to be built on the wave-battered southern Australian coast near Portland, in Victoria.

"We'll have a queue to roll these things out, because the fact we can do both electrical energy and desalinated water is quite compelling," he said.


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