Abstract
Among the renewable sources, the energy stored in waves is more concentrated than others such wind or solar energy sources. The wave energy sectors are at the cutting edge of engineering design and several technologies sound technical solutions, with positive steps towards commercial viability, however, the cost of energy projection is still too high to allow direct access to mass electricity market in the short term. Meanwhile, the extension of O&G Companies presence in offshore and deep water frontier regions has been one of the main causes of the increasing interest in ocean wave energy in upstream operations. Consideration is directed to the increasing offshore power demand which triggers a challenge of maintain environmentally responsible operations while maximizing returns on O&G production investment. Accelerated development of ocean energy technologies by O&G offshore experience and investments could offer a wide range of long-term benefits, such as new routes to decarbonisation, creation of a new generation portfolio and potential economic opportunities for the development of wave farms and multi-megawatt projects. This paper aims at giving an overview of the first worldwide open water demonstration project of a wave energy converter connected to a refitted gas platform off the coast of Ravenna in Adriatic Sea, an open-sea facility to support research, technical testing and commercial demonstration of prototypes and offshore stand-alone renewable multi-source grid. It will address the deployment, the sea prototype testing and offshore power export of ISWEC, a Wave Energy Converter able to transform the wave-induced motion of a vessel into electrical power, by gyroscopic effects produced from a spinning flywheel carried inside it.