Thursday 10 January 2019

Two Scottish energy firms hit by £7.7m wave of new funding

Two Scottish firms have been granted £7.7 million to develop innovative new wave energy technologies.

Inverness-based AWS Ocean Energy and Edinburgh's Mocean Energy have received the funding from Wave Energy Scotland to conduct half-scale tests of their devices in real ocean conditions at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney.

AWS Ocean Energy has developed a fully-submerged 'point absorber' model named the ‘Archimedes Waveswing’, while Mocean Energy's ‘Blue Horizon’ is a floating hinged structure.

The winning designs were selected as the most promising concepts of the round for funding applications.

Tim Hurst, Managing Director of Wave Energy Scotland said: "These state-of-the art designs represent the most advanced and innovative devices in the UK today and our programme is ensuring that Scotland stays front and centre of the global wave energy story.

"Both devices have already proved their suitability during tank testing and in modelling and the next step is to test them in real-sea conditions. This funding will allow both companies to further develop their designs before building and testing the prototypes in Orkney in 2020, where marine engineering expertise is plentiful."