Australian wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy has achieved financial closure for its CETO 6 Project off Garden Island.
The five-year, A$20 million (US$15.6 million) loan facility is from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which will be used to part fund the construction of the project and will reduce the amount of equity Carnegie would otherwise require for the project.
The CETO 6 project has also received a commitment for a A$11m grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
“Reaching financial close on the CEFC facility is a watershed moment for Carnegie as this is the first time ever that Carnegie has achieved a pure debt finance deal,” said Carnegie’s Chief Financial Officer Aidan Flynn. It now gives Carnegie the certainty of capital and cash flows to build this important commercial version of the CETO technology. Not only does the financial close pave the way for this project to happen it also importantly paves the way for project finance for subsequent CETO projects.”
Carnegie has also recently been granted a Commonwealth investigation licence to undertake the site characterisation activities required to finalise the design of the project. In addition, Carnegie has received an EPBC Referral Decision from the Federal Department of the Environment to undertake geophysical and geotechnical surveys at the proposed CETO 6 site. A wave buoy has already been deployed at the site to collect further detailed data about the wave resource at that location.
The CETO 6 offshore project site will be located approximately 8 kilometres further offshore from the current site of its Perth project which earlier this week was connected to the grid. The exact location will be determined following geophysical surveys.
The wave resource at the CETO 6 project site is expected to be some three times more energetic than the existing Perth Project site, Carnegie said.
The development of the CETO 6 project officially began in 2013 and is currently in the concept design stage. Carnegie has previously announced that the CETO 6 unit will have increased power output, targeting four times the power capacity of the 240-kilowatt CETO 5 unit currently operating in the Perth project.