The Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant is a

wave power plant Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful mechanical work, work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power (physics), power is a wave energy converter (WE ...

constructed by Ente Vasco de la Energía (EVE), the Basque energy agency, in the bay of

Mutriku Mutriku ( es, Motrico) is a coastal town located in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Autonomous Community of Basque Country in northern Spain. It has a population of around 5000 and provides access to the Bay of Biscay. It is the site of the worl ...

in the

Bay of Biscay The Bay of Biscay (), known in Spain as the Gulf of Biscay ( es, Golfo de Vizcaya, eu, Bizkaiko Golkoa), and in France and some border regions as the Gulf of Gascony (french: Golfe de Gascogne, oc, Golf de Gasconha, br, Pleg-mor Gwaskogn), ...

. It is the world's first

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...

wave power plant with a multiple turbine arrangement. The plant has a capacity of 296 kW from 16

turbo generator A turbo generator is an electric generator connected to the shaft of a steam turbine or gas turbine for the generation of electric power. Large steam-powered turbo generators provide the majority of the world's electricity and are also used b ...

sets. It was inaugurated on July 8, 2011.Mutriku cuenta con la primera planta europea ...
''(in Spanish)''
''(in German)''

Design and construction

The Mutriku plant was built by Ente Vasco de la Energía, using

oscillating water column Oscillating water columns (OWCs) are a type of wave energy converter that harness energy from the oscillation of the seawater inside a chamber or hollow caused by the action of waves. OWCs have shown promise as a renewable energy source with low e ...

(OWC) technology from

Voith Hydro The Voith Group is a German manufacturer of machines for the pulp and paper industry, technical equipment for hydropower plants and drive and braking systems. The family-owned company, which operates worldwide and has its headquarters in Heide ...

. After the design for the Mutriku breakwater was completed in 2005, the Basque government's Department of Transport and Public Works asked EVE to design a wave power plant integrated into the breakwater. OWC technology was chosen as it had been previously tested (for example, at the

Islay LIMPET Islay LIMPET was the world's first commercial wave power device and was connected to the United Kingdom's National Grid. History Islay LIMPET (Land Installed Marine Power Energy Transmitter) was developed and operated by Wavegen in cooperatio ...

device) and could be easily integrated into the existing breakwater design. Construction of the power plant began in 2006, with completion planned by 2009. The plant was built into a 100-meter section of the breakwater on a 0.50 meter deep foundation, measuring 14.24 meters wide and 102 meters long. 16 air chambers were constructed on the foundation, using prefabricated parts. Each air chamber has a permanently submerged opening to allow ingress of sea water into the air column. A fixed-pitch

Wells turbine The Wells turbine is a low-pressure Wind turbine, air turbine that rotates continuously in one direction independent of the direction of the air flow. Its blades feature a symmetrical airfoil with its plane of symmetry in the plane of rotation an ...

turbo generator set is connected to each air chamber. Each turbo generator unit is oriented vertically, measures 2.83 meters tall by 1.25 meters wide and weighs approximately . These have an individual rated capacity of 18.5 kW, with the 16 units providing a total capacity of 296 kW. This equipment was manufactured by Voith Hydro.

Operational history

The Mutriku power plant was inaugurated on July 8, 2011. It produces enough energy to supply approximately 100 households. During its first five years of operation, it supplied over 1.3 GWh of power to the grid. In 2020, EVE announced that the Mutriku plant had produced a cumulative total of 2 GWh, making it the record holder for most electricity produced by a wave power plant, as well as most cumulative operating hours for a wave power plant. A study published in 2018 calculated that the

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...

of the Mutriku power plant from 2014 to 2016 was 0.11. The researchers behind this study proposed that capacity factor could be increased by improving control of turbine speeds. From 2016 onwards, various monitoring efforts were implemented in order to assess the environmental impact of

underwater sound Underwater acoustics is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water, its contents and its boundaries. The water may be in the ocean, a lake, a river or a tank. Typ ...

emissions produced by the power plant.

References

{{renewable-power-plant-stub Buildings and structures in the Basque Country (autonomous community) Wave farms in Spain

Design and construction

Operational history

See also

References