Ocean Power Technologies, Inc., announced today that the PB40 PowerBuoy(R) fabricated for the WavePort Project has shipped from Santander, Spain to Bayonne, NJ with the intent to deploy off the coast of New Jersey in the first quarter of 2015. The PowerBuoy is expected to arrive around mid-November and having been disassembled for transport, will require re-assembly, final checkout and permits before deployment.
The PowerBuoy was fabricated with partial funding and support provided under the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme and, after evaluation of several sites, New Jersey was selected as the best location for deployment. Final assembly and checkout was completed in Spain, ownership transferred to OPT per the contract and the buoy departed Santander on October 7.
David Keller, Interim CEO of OPT, stated, "We thank the EC and members of the WavePort Consortium, specifically, ISRI, WavEC, DeGima SA, Fugro Oceanor AS and the University of Exeter for their support in advancing this important project. We intend to deploy and ocean test the PB40 as quickly as possible in order to achieve the original WavePort project objectives to demonstrate performance of a large scale wave energy converter."
Mr. Keller continued, "We continue to believe that ocean trials are the most effective means of demonstrating the current state of technology and to provide the critical operating data to guide further product improvements. Due to the shared technology with our smaller scale autonomous buoys, the testing of the PB40 also enables us to more rapidly execute our strategic shift to capitalize on the growing market for offshore data collection and transmission that require off grid power production at smaller scale."