Carnegie Wave Energy ready to build wave-powered desalination pilot plant

Perth-based Mak Water Industrial has won a manufacturing and construction contract from Carnegie Wave Energy for its wave-powered desalination pilot plant in Australia.

The plant will be integrated into Carnegie’s Perth Wave Energy Project on Garden Island, Western Australia. It aims to demonstrate the production of both power and freshwater from wave energy. It is capable of supplying up to one third of the water needs of the country’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling, located on Garden Island.

Carnegie desalination project manager Edoardo Sommacal said: "We are very pleased to have reached this important milestone of design completion and to now move into desalination project manufacture and construction which is scheduled to be complete in the first half of 2014."

Carnegie recently completed the detailed design of the desalination plant that leverages the CETO wave energy hydraulic system infrastructure currently being installed at the Garden Island site. Onshore site works for both the power and desalination facilities have now commenced.

The detailed design phase also involved environmental investigation which has been completed to provide baseline data to monitor ongoing Carnegie site activity, as well as assisting and informing design and construction phases of the combined project.

AusIndustry’s Clean Technology Innovation Program has provided $1.27m to the desalination pilot project in Federal Government grant funding, of which $320,000 has already been received.