From MSNBC.COM:

Wave power planned off Portugal

Three turbines for now, 30 could follow

OSLO, Norway - A Scottish company will deploy sausage-shaped tubes off Portugal to create the world’s first commercial wave power plant, providing electricity to 1,500 homes from 2006, a partner in the Scottish firm said on Friday.

Ocean Power Delivery (OPD) will build the wave farm about three miles off Portugal’s northern coast, near Povoa de Varzim, OPD’s Norwegian backer Norsk Hydro said.

OPD will deliver three wave power generation units with capacity of 2.25 megawatts to Portuguese renewable energy group Enersis for $10 million, but the project could be expanded significantly, Norsk Hydro said.

OPD’s Pelamis P-750 wage energy converter is an elongated metal unit that looks like a big semi-submerged sausage, with hinged segments that rock with the sea, up and down and side to side, pumping fluid to hydraulic motors that drive generators.

The power produced by the generators is fed into underwater cables and brought to land.

A letter of intent for a further 30 Pelamis wave machines for a total of 20 megawatts before the end of 2006 was also signed, subject to satisfactory performance by the initial installation, Hydro said.

“If all goes well, many additional sites producing up to a total several hundred MW could be developed along the coast,” Norsk Hydro said.

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