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The next step in Oregon State University’s construction of a wave energy testing facility off the Oregon Coast near Newport will be visible this month.

Crews are working on shore and from a vessel anchored about a mile offshore from Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site south of Newport. The work is part of the construction of PacWave South, which will be the first pre-permitted, utility-scale, grid-connected wave energy test site in the United States.

Workers aboard a 265-foot vessel anchored just off the coast and crews at the recreation site will inspect and prepare cable conduits for next summer’s planned installation of power and data cables. To accommodate the work, portions of Driftwood Beach State Recreation Site parking lot will be closed. Work at the recreation site is expected to be completed by early September.

When completed, PacWave will offer wave energy developers the opportunity to try different technologies for harnessing the power of ocean waves and transmitting that energy to the local electrical grid. The test site will be on a sandy-bottomed stretch of the Pacific Ocean away from commercial and recreational fishing reefs about seven miles off the coast of Newport. The site will have four test berths that combined can accommodate up to 20 wave energy devices at one time.

Power and data cables buried below the seafloor will connect the ocean test site to a shoreside facility in Seal Rock, south of Newport. Louisiana-based industrial electrical services contractor R.T. Casey is overseeing the procurement, construction and installation of the cables for PacWave. The 12-mile-long cables are being manufactured in Norway by Paris-based firm Nexans. They are expected to be installed next summer.

OSU has pursued development of a wave energy test facility for more than a decade. The project is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Oregon and other public and private entities. Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences is managing the construction and operation of the more than $80 million facility.