Simply Blue Energy, has announced its initiative ‘Western Star’, a proposed co-developed floating offshore wind farm and wave energy conversion array off Ireland’s West Coast. The project intends to utilise wave power from the Atlantic ocean while pioneering cutting-edge technologies.
The 1.1GW project is located 35km offshore County Clare. Project Ilen is currently the leading floating wind project on the west coast of Ireland. Western Star Wave, ‘Project Saoirse’, named after a sister vessel to Ilen, also built in Baltimore West Cork, is a pre-commercial demonstration wave energy conversion project located 4-6km offshore Co. Clare, starting with 5MW of capacity. Simply Blue is working with CorPower Ocean and EIT Innoenergy to develop the Saoirse project.
Sam Roch-Perks, MD of the Simply Blue Group said, “Ireland’s development of floating wind sites continues and we are delighted to be introducing wave energy to the energy mix. We believe that the combination of the two technologies will deliver significant system benefits to help economies move to net zero”.
Preliminary Front End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) and offshore survey activities have been initiated in parallel with continued stakeholder engagement activity.
A foreshore site investigation licence application was submitted in December 2020.
