Portugal on a rising tide of wave energy

Portugal is positioning itself as a European wave energy hub, with manufacturing and offshore deployment plans advancing in Viana do Castelo.

A Swedish-Portuguese industry delegation visited the facilities this week to discuss how wave power could support energy security, industrial growth and a new clean-energy supply chain.

At the heart is the Swedish firm CorPower Ocean, which hosted the delegation led by Swedish ambassador to Portugal Johan Pehrson.

“Portugal and Sweden share a strong commitment to innovation, sustainability and industrial development,” said Pehrson. “CorPower Ocean is an excellent example of how Swedish technology and Portuguese capabilities can work together to create new industries, strengthen Europe’s energy resilience and generate long-term economic value.”

CorPower’s technology generates power using by converting energy from ocean waves into electricity. The fact that it can generate for almost 24 hours a day means it can balance the variable output of other resources like wind and solar.

With the company already demonstrating the commercial-scale machine in Portuguese waters, its next planned step is a 15MW VianaWave project, comprising 45 wave energy converters. Construction is expected to begin in 2028. The project would move the technology towards utility-scale deployment, while testing the industrial and operational chain needed to install and maintain multiple devices offshore.

Europe’s wave-energy projects

Europe’s wave sector remains at demonstration and early commercial stages, with projects testing different device designs and operating conditions. Here are just four of them:

• In Scotland, Wave Energy Scotland-backed developers have tested systems intended to withstand harsh seas and reduce the cost of offshore maintenance. Edinburgh-based

  

  Mocean Energy has tested its Blue X prototype and is preparing a 250kW device for EMEC (the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney). Also in Scotland, France’s Seaturns has tested a point absorber, a cylindrical float that rocks with the waves, driving an internal water pendulum and airflow through a turbine to generate electricity.

• Finland’s AW-Energy is developing WaveRoller, a seabed-mounted hinged panel that moves with nearshore wave surges. Its planned ONDEP project in Peniche, Portugal, is a 2MW array of four converters, covering manufacture, deployment and grid-connected operation.
• Ocean Energy’s OE Buoy, developed in Ireland, uses an oscillating water column to drive air through a turbine; its full-scale prototype has been tested at the US Navy’s wave-energy site in Hawaii, with European development rooted in Irish engineering.
• Finally, Dutch developer Wavepiston has installed an oscillating-wave surge converter at the Oceanic Platform in the Canary Islands.