WES provides £2.8M boost to four wave energy projects

Wave Energy Scotland (WES) has awarded £2.84 million to four wave energy technology developers who will be proceeding to the second stage of its wave technology development program.

The funding will support further design, modelling and testing of technologies being developed through WES’s Novel Wave Energy Converter (NWEC) program, one of a series of programs designed to help commercialize the wave energy sector in Scotland.

The four successful projects progressing to stage two of the NWEC program will be awarded up to 100% of the costs for developing their technology project, with each contract worth around £700,000, WES said.

The projects include 4c Engineering-led ACER2 project; Improved Arhimedes Waveswing project led by AWS Ocean Energy; Anaconda Novel Wave Energy Converter Stage 2 headed by Checkmate Seaenergy; and Mocean Energy-led project titled Mocean WEC: Next-Level Hydrodynamics and Engineering.

Tim Hurst, Managing Director of WES, said: “Our competitive technology development process aims to bring forward projects that will promote greater confidence in the technical performance of wave energy systems. This, of course, calls for very rigorous assessment and some difficult decisions about investment. I am pleased to confirm our further support for these four projects through to the next stage of development and very much look forward to seeing how the project teams might further develop their wave energy converter designs.”

WES selected the four projects as the most promising of eight applications from contractors in stage one of its NWEC program, which focuses on solutions to capture wave movement.

The projects will now progress to stage two of the program which is expected to run until autumn 2018.

Once this stage concludes, the project teams will be able to apply for stage three funding to develop a scaled prototype device for real sea testing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, according to WES.

The latest announcement brings the total investment by WES in wave energy technology development to £24.6 million across 56 projects in just over two years, the organization said.

WES is a subsidiary of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), established and fully funded by the Scottish government, in an effort to advance the wave energy sector in Scotland.