WA Labor party has defended its Albany wave farm proposal amid claims by the WA’s Energy Minister Mike Nahan who reportedly said the project lacked credibility.
Western Austalia’s (WA) Labor party has recently made a commitment to invest almost Au$20 million in renewable energy projects in Albany which also include plans to build a wave energy farm.
The project has attracted the attention of Australian wave energy developer, Carnegie Clean Energy (CCE), who said it was interested in the development of wave project off Albany.
However, WA’s Energy Minister Mike Nahan said the proposal by WA Labor lacked any credibility, questioning the funding for the project announced by the party, according to the West Australian.
“Labor needs to explain how much energy will be generated, what the impact on edge-of-grid network security and reliability will be, and when the project will be up and running and delivering power to the people of Albany,” Nahan was quoted as saying by the West Australian.
The leader of the WA Labor party, Mark McGowan, defended the project calling Nahan’s claims ‘false’ as the funding for the project was already provided through money budgeted for the now shelved gas pipeline project, the West Australian reports.
Also, CCE said it has been working on plans for a wave farm in Albany for nearly a decade, spending over Au$1million on studies, surveys and designs for the region, including site assessment, wave resource mapping, licensing and site design.
According to CCE, the Albany project would be developed in stages, with the installation of an initial 1MW unit, and subsequent expansion to 20MW.
Should the 20MW prove successful, according to CCE, the project could be further expanded to 100MW.