He has slammed the Barnett Government’s decision to allow the government-subsidised pilot commercial wave power plant to be moved.

“Mr Barnett obviously thinks that it’s better for his Government’s political fortunes to throw millions of dollars at a project in Perth rather than in Albany,” Mr Watson said.

Fremantle-based The Carnegie Corporation had considered using Albany to base its new CETO technology off the coast at Sandpatch.

Albany City Council went out of its way to provide on-shore availability by rezoning an area near the Sandpatch wind farm after the company expressed strong interest in establishing its trial project.

In February, the State Government promised to invest $12.5million in the “power station” off Albany.

Environment Minister Donna Faragher and Energy Minister Peter Collier said the funding from the Low Emissions Energy Development (LEED) fund would enable Perth-based Carnegie Corporation to develop the first two stages of a 50MW power station by 2013.

But Mr Watson said a recent joint press release put out by Environment Minister Donna Farragher and Energy Minister Peter Collier confirmed the change of location was at the request of Carnegie Corporation.

It “was considered to be the lower risk option for the demonstration facility.”

“I would like to know where the risk is in putting a wave power plant in Albany,” Mr Watson said.

“With our climate and coastline Albany is ideal for a demonstration wave power plant.

“This decision means that Albany can kiss goodbye to our hopes of becoming the first ever 100 per cent renewable energy city in Australia.”

Mr Watson said the decision was just another example of Mr Barnett “kow-towing” to big business interests without any thought for what the people in the street wanted.

Still to be proved on a large scale, the CETO system involves an array of submerged buoys tethered to seabed pump units, moving in harmony with the motion of the passing waves and driving pumps which pressurise seawater which is delivered ashore via a pipeline.