In the coming months Finnish based company Wello Oy will be bringing its wave energy converter (WEC) to the Basque country deploying at BiMEP's site in Armintza. Thanks to the quick and diligent effort by the members at EVE and BiMEP, in cooperation with Wello they have secured funding for the installation, deployment and operation of the Penguin WEC to their site.
In 2012 Wello Oy deployed their original prototype device in Orkney, Scotland for several years. During that time the prototype celebrated a successful testing campaign and surpassed the expectations of the Finnish developer. Through many successful deployments, trials and lessons learnt from the testing period and the accomplishments of the device, Wello has transferred all this experience to the new fully actualized Penguin WEC. The CEFOW project in Scotland has come to end.
The Penguin finished construction in June and will now commence towing to its new home in Armintza. Wello is eagerly awaiting the arrival and a quick and successful deployment, generating clean renewable energy from the ocean's waves directly to the grid at Armintza.
Wello's CEO Heikki Paakkinen has this to say:
The Basque country has huge potential for wave energy, and we are extremely happy with the funding decision. This new project has the potential to set in motion more projects in and around the area, with many parties already showing interest in developing the site further. We know that we can create many opportunities in The Basque country and across the globe. We are excited for the coming months and look forward to working with BiMEP on this project.'
BiMEP's Technical Director Yago Torre-Enciso says:
We are happy to welcome Wello to BiMEP. It´s been easy to prepare, jointly with Wello, the arrival of PENGUIN 2. The experience of Wello and BiMEP in previous testing campaigns has brought us to save time, managing everything for a quick deployment in some weeks. The agility of EVE managing its support program for testing in the Basque Country has been helpful too.'
EVE's responsible for marine energy support program Olatz Ajuria says:
We have been very happy working with Wello and we are ready to welcome them to our wave energy site with the next innovation in wave energy. This will bring more opportunities and funding in and around the site. We are looking forward to the future with Wello and to continuing the Basque Country's commitment to green energy in general and particularly to ocean energy.'
The Basque Energy Cluster commented:
The Basque Country is a key region in the development of Wave Energy, with several companies working as developers and suppliers of critical components. We are quite glad that a leading company like Wello has chosen BiMEP as its main test site, as we are sure that it will bring many opportunities of collaboration with Basque organisations.'
