U.S. Navy Partners with Irish Ocean Energy Company for $12 Million Project

By Adam Farley, Deputy Editor
April / May 2018

Ocean Energy, a County Cork-based renewable energy technology company, has partnered with the U.S. Navy and Oregon-based fabrication company Vigor to build the first full-scale model of a pioneering wave energy conversion device called the OE Buoy.

“It’s the combination of Irish innovation and American manufacturing expertise and that’s always going to produce a world-class result,” Ocean Energy CEO John McCarthy said at the U.S. launch event in February at the Irish Embassy in Washington, D.C. “This internationally significant project will be invaluable to job creation, renewable energy generation, and greenhouse gas reduction. The marine renewables market is rapidly expanding, with the potential of marine energy meeting a significant percentage of the global energy demand. The United States has a substantial wave energy resource, which could deliver up to 15 percent of its annual electricity demand, which would represent a considerable market in electricity sales alone.”

The $12 million device will be deployed in the waters off the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii later this summer. ♦

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