A WAVE machine for Orkney is set to be manufactured in Scotland after an Edinburgh energy firm secured more than £3 million in EU funding for the project.
The large-scale device – named Blue Horizon 250 – will be deployed in a grid-connected berth at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney as early as 2025.
It is hoped the project will pave the way to a small wave farm delivering 1 to 2MW of low carbon electricity by 2030.
The £3.2m of funding has been awarded to Mocean Energy, which is one of three firms to have been granted cash in Phase 3 of EuropeWave – an innovative EU-funded programme for wave energy technology.
Company co-founder and managing director Cameron McNatt said: “We have already demonstrated our technology successfully at small scale and this programme will allow us to build a significantly larger machine.
“We are already working with a range of supply chain partners across Scotland and the UK who bring tremendous experience and professionalism to the wave energy sector, and I am confident we have the right suppliers on board to bring this ambitious project to fruition.
“Innovation funding is crucial for early-stage technologies, and I am grateful to EuropeWave for this support which will help leverage the additional private investment this project will require.
“Looking further ahead, our goal is to deliver a small array in UK waters this decade, and I am confident that with appropriate innovation funding in place we can realise our ambition to build commercial wave energy arrays and generate home-grown green energy from our seas, both in the UK and around the world.
Mocean Energy is already a key participant in the £2m Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP) programme which has connected Mocean’s 10kW Blue X wave energy prototype with a Halo underwater battery system developed by Aberdeen intelligent energy management specialists, Verlume.
The two technologies are currently in the seas off Orkney where they are delivering low carbon power and communication to infrastructure including Baker Hughes’ subsea controls equipment and a resident underwater autonomous vehicle (AUV) provided by Transmark Subsea.
Blue Horizon 250 will be a significant scale up from Blue X and is designed for commercial applications on islands and remote communities, while also including early grid projects and off-grid applications, such as oil and gas and aquaculture.
The deployment and demonstration of the Blue X at EMEC was funded by Wave Energy Scotland (WES).
Tim Hurst, managing director of WES said: “With their Blue X prototype deployed in Scapa Flow, Mocean Energy proved their technology had the right cost, performance and reliability to deliver commercial wave energy.
“The RSP project has successfully demonstrated the technology in a specific oil and gas application, and now phase three of EuropeWave will demonstrate that the technology can scale up and ultimately be deployed in sufficient numbers to make a significant contribution to our net zero targets.
To complete the full-scale 250 kW Blue Horizon programme, Mocean will bring in private funding as required.
“The EuropeWave programme is a vital catalyst to build confidence in the industry and accelerate the technology towards commercialisation,” McNatt added.
