The Norwegian company Ocean Oasis is moving forward with its plan to test its offshore water desalination system using wave power in Gran Canaria. Its Chief Operating Officer, Sebastian Feimblatt, and Chief Technology Officer, Thomas Berge Johannessen, met with the CEO of the public consortium Plataforma Oceánica de Canarias (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands) (Plocan), José Joaquín Hernández Brito, to organise for the research to be launched at the end of this year.

In mid-January, Ocean Oasis received a 2.5 million euros grant from the European Innovation Council's (EIC) Horizon Europe scheme. This investment will facilitate the development of a project with a triple objective: to supply desalinated water to the islands and to reduce the environmental impact and cost of the process.

Large-scale pilot desalination buoy
Plocan's infrastructure supports research, technological development and innovation in the marine and maritime sectors. It includes laboratories and facilities for both onshore and offshore experiments. In this project, it will provide Ocean Oasis with support for testing its large-scale pilot desalination buoy. Access to the offshore platform will be provided by Marhis.

Ocean Oasis will open an office and carry out part of its R&D activities in Gran Canaria. It also plans to raise private capital this year to underpin the project. "We are excited to be able to advance our offshore desalination technology with an institution like Plocan and to continue our R&D activity in Gran Canaria," said Feimblatt.

Wave power potential
The project, scheduled to last two years, aims to develop wave-powered desalination technology and covers the design, construction, deployment and testing of the large-scale desalination buoy at the Plocan facility. Hernández Brito believes that direct exposure to the Atlantic Ocean and the presence of the trade winds provide the Canary Islands with significant wave power potential, especially along the northern coast of the islands.

The European Innovation Council awarded the grant to Ocean Oasis on the grounds that this innovation has the potential to technologically alter the desalination market worldwide. As Kristine Bangstad Fredriksen, CEO of the company, explains, "Seawater desalination must scale up substantially in an increasingly water-stressed world. But it must do so without major emissions and without damaging local marine ecosystems.”

^{Photo: Ocean Oasis}