courtesy Pelamis Wave Power Ltd

The world’s first commercial wave-power project has begun producing power offshore Portugal, where sections of the snake-like Pelamis — already well-known in the energy industry — compress their connecting hydraulics into motive power.

Scotland’s Pelamis Wave Power Ltd.’s Pelamis Energy Converters, or PWECs, will produce 2.25 megawatts of power for their €9 million price tag, or just about a quarter of their capacity.

The company and its invention were first widely reported on some five years ago, when then Norwegian oil company Hydro became an investor. Now, a second stage of the project envisions 25 Pelamis “sea snakes” producing 21 MW for some 100,000 Portuguese.

The Portugual project is jointly owned by Pelamis, energy investors Babcock & Brown Ltd., Energias de Portugal and infrastructure company EFACEC.

The 140-meter-long “semi-submersible” contains three motors between its four sections. Hydraulic arms compress and extend as waves wash over the machinery. The arm’s compress hydraulic fluid into a high-pressure reservoir which injects the liquid through a generator.

Electrical current travels via cable to the seabed and then onward to land-based transformers.

Portuguese officials had once contemplated nuclear power for the same stretch of Atlantic coastline along northwest Portugal.

The Aguçadoura wave energy project is supported by a €0.23/kWh subsidy.