OPT Marks Power Milestone in Eni’s MaREnergy Project

Ocean Power Technologies’s PB3 PowerBuoy deployed in the Adriatic Sea has produced more than 1 MWh cumulative energy to date.

The PowerBuoy has been deployed for six months, operating continuously and error-free while being controlled remotely from OPT’s NJ facility.

George H. Kirby, OPT’s president and CEO said, “We are excited to announce this major power generation milestone for our PB3 PowerBuoy deployed in the Adriatic Sea. Since the contract began in March of last year, OPT and Eni have been collaborating as a part of the Clean Sea initiative, and have achieved several important milestones with the PowerBuoy.

“The PowerBuoy has been extremely reliable and demonstrated flexibility across a variety of applications. This ongoing successful project with Eni makes it clear that the PB3 PowerBuoy is a valuable tool for a broad range of offshore Oil & Gas exploration and production operations, including charging of underwater unmanned vehicles, well monitoring, asset inspection, and decommissioning applications, and this project could lead to many new opportunities for our company going forward,” concluded Mr. Kirby.

OPT’s PowerBuoy is part of Eni’s MaREnergy project to demonstrate the suitability of wave-energy renewable technologies in the oil & gas industry. The PowerBuoy has been deployed in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Italy since November 2018.

The PowerBuoy was selected by Eni’s integrated subsea technology systems team to develop applications for remotely controlled field operations powered by wave energy, including environmental monitoring and offshore asset inspection with autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

OPT’s PowerBuoy has demonstrated AUV charging capabilities during the recent trials with Eni, sending power and communications to a subsea payload throughout the test period.

The PowerBuoy is being tested as a standalone charging station and communications platform to enable the long-term remote operation of AUVs.