Italian industrial giants Eni, Fincantieri and Terna have teamed up with bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) to form a new company to build commercial-scale wave power plants.

The companies, which signed the founders’ agreement in the presence of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, plan to install a prototype of an Inertial Sea Wave Energy Converter (ISWEC) near Eni’s Prezioso oil platform in the Strait of Sicily “in the second half of 2020”.

The partners envisage fleshing out a development strategy that would see ISWEC stations installed “in Italy’s minor islands first, and abroad at a later stage”.

“This agreement fits perfectly in our strategic plan for decarbonisation and applies to Eni’s experience in both offshore activities and the management of highly complex projects,” said Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi.

“On the basis of those skills, we set up and installed the first industrial application of ISWEC in record time for this sector. The collaboration with CDP, Terna and Fincantieri will allow to make available an outstanding asset of know-how and therefore accelerate the industrialisation process of this technology, unlike other similar projects.”

CDP Group CEO Fabrizio Palermo stated: “This agreement intends to develop an extremely innovative technology … and is consistent with our strategy that aims at gradually directing our group’s activities and investments towards the support of the energy transition and against climate change.”

Fincantieri CEO Giuseppe Bono said: “This large-scale industrial and technological cooperation … opens a new frontier in Italy for the utilisation or renewable energy.”

Terna CEO Luigi Ferraris said: “The initiative [was based on] an important partnership that, using new enablers, will help to boost our country’s role within the European energy system, in an increasingly decarbonised and sustainable scenario.”

Though built around a industrial-scale wave energy conversion device, ISWEC is a hybrid concept featuring both PV and energy storage systems tailored to supply power to “medium- to large-scale” offshore assets, including remote, off-grid locations such as islands.

The ISWEC was developed by Wave for Energy (W4E), a spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Turin, with a first full-scale device installed off the coast of Pantelleria in 2015.

The W4E wave power station is based around gyroscopic system housed inside a watertight mono-hull vessel secured to the sea floor by a slack mooring line.

Eni’s oil & gas contracting subsidiary Saipem recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Finnish wave energy outfit Wello to optimise the latter’s WEC Penguin technology.

Transition

Eni-led industrial group launches utility-scale wave power plans