The companies claimed the so-called "wave farm" will be the world's first such commercial operation.
The power generators, like giant, orange sausages floating on water, will use wave motion to produce electricity by pumping high-pressure fluids to motors, Hydro said. The
The generators were developed by Ocean Power Delivery, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, which signed an USD 6.25 million contract with a Portuguese consortium to build three Pelamis P-750 wave power generators next year.
The project will order 30 more generators from the consortium - headed by the Enersis SPGS power company - by the end of 2006, if the initial phase is successful, Hydro said.
The first, three-generator phase of the wave farm would produce 2.25 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply 1,500 Portuguese homes. Hydro said producing that much energy in a conventional fossil fuel plant would emit 6,000 tons of climate-damaging carbon dioxide.
A variety of systems, including wave and tidal energy, are being tested around the world as possible environmentally friendly and renewable energy sources. The European Union has said it wants 22 percent of its power to be renewable by 2010, compared to 6 percent now.
Richard Erskine, head of Hydro's Technology Ventures unit, said the Pelamis concept is so far the only one recognized as a viable project by the US Electric Power Research Institute, a research consortium of American power utilities.
