Wave converter raises £7.5 million in funding

EDINBURGH, Scotland, 2004-07-14 Refocus Weekly

The Scottish developer of a wave energy generator has raised £7.5 million in funding, including £1.5 million from the Carbon Trust.

Ocean Power Delivery of Edinburgh has developed the Pelamis wave energy converter that builds on technology developed for the offshore industry. The first full-scale pre-production prototype has completed initial trials in the North Sea and will be tested this year at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

If performance of the prototype is verified this year, production of the first commercial units will start. OPD is working with partners in Scotland, southwest England and Portugal to deploy initial pilot schemes over the next two years, as the first stage towards larger commercial scale installations later this decade.

A commercial ‘wave-farm’ would consist of interlinked machines that feed power to the grid via a common sub-sea cable. A 30 MW wave-farm would occupy one square kilometre of ocean and generate electricity for 20,000 homes.

OPD already has Norsk Hydro Technology Ventures, 3i and Sustainable Asset Management as venture capital investors since early 2002, investing £2 million each into the company.

“Although a number of companies around the globe are exploring innovative ways to harness the ocean as a free energy resource, Pelamis is clearly one of the leaders in the race to make electricity generation from wave power a commercial reality,” says Russell Pullan of The Carbon Trust.

“Wave power offers a fantastic opportunity for the UK to emulate the wind industry which today has grown into a multi-billion pound export-led business, employing tens of thousands of people in Denmark, Germany and Spain,” adds OPD chairman David Lindley. “The extra funds will allow us to accelerate our commercial program.”

OPD was formed in 1998 after wave power was included for the first time as a supported tariff under the third round of the Scottish Renewables Obligation, SRO3. Lindley was founder and managing director of National Wind Power and of Wind Energy Group, who received an OBE for his services to renewable energy and the wind turbine industry.

The Carbon Trust promotes investment in low-carbon technologies and invests in early-stage technologies with funding from the Scottish Executive.

In May, OPD announced an agreement with ScottishPower and AMEC to conduct a large-scale feasibility study of wave power off Scotland. The work will assess the technical and commercial viability of the floating Pelamis (Greek for sea snake) generator, which comprises four 24-m canisters aligned perpendicular to the waves, to generate electricity from the relative motion at the flexible joints between each of the canisters. Each Pelamis has a maximum output of 750 kW.


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