The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) issued a call for tenders for a floating LiDAR and associated provision of data in February 2024, saying the contract will include the installation, operation, maintenance, collection of metocean data, and subsequent decommissioning of a floating LiDAR system at AMETS, and provision of “data as a service” using the collected data.
According to a contract award notice published on 16 August, Green Rebel signed the contract on 26 July.
SEAI obtained a foreshore lease for the AMETS site in 2015 to test wave energy technology and install export cables. Planning permission for the onshore infrastructure was granted in 2017. In 2018, SEAI started working on expanding the site’s scope to include floating wind technology.
The site will provide two separate test locations with different water depths to allow a range of devices to be tested. Test Area A will be located some 16 kilometres offshore of Belderra Strand, where the water depth is 100 metres, while Test Area B will be some 6 kilometres from Belderra Strand, at a water depth of 50 metres.
