Carnegie teams up with HP to give its wave energy tech an AI touch

Carnegie Clean Energy (ASX:CCE) has got Hewlett Packard onboard to help it develop its wave energy tech.

Carnegie has spent several years trying to make wave power viable. Wave power is generated via a floating mechanism, which captures the energy formed in ocean waves and converts it to electricity.

Carnegie has an underwater system, CETO, that converts ocean waves into zero-emission electricity.

In 2017 it won a $16 million funding deal from the WA government, foreseeing it would power local homes in Albany. But in 2019 it was withdrawn forcing the company to enter administration and go back to the drawing board.

The company has notched up some minor wins such as landing a Microsoft AI for Earth grant.

Teaming up with HP

But today Carnegie announced Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company will develop a reinforcement learning (RL) based controller for its CETO technology.

In general terms RL-based controllers help devices self-learn. In the case of CETO, the RL controller will apply the optimum response to predicted waves during operation.

Carnegie said it will help its system move from responding on simulated data to learning and optimising by utilising what is actually happening during operations.

“The teams at Carnegie and HPE look forward to working together to pursue this exciting innovation which has potential to improve the performance and reduce the cost of the CETO technology and revolutionise control of wave energy converters,” the company said.

Shares in the micro-cap stock doubled today – albeit from a tenth of a cent to a fifth of a cent.