Four wave energy technology developers are to be awarded a total of £2.84 million (US$3.67 million) by Wave Energy Scotland (WES) after successfully competing to join stage two of an innovative technology development programme.
The funding will support further design, modelling and testing of technologies being developed through WES’s Novel Wave Energy Converter (NWEC) programme, one of a series of programmes designed to help commercialize the wave energy sector in Scotland.
WES selected the four projects as the most promising of eight applications from contractors in stage one of its NWEC programme, which focuses on solutions to capture wave movement. They will now progress to stage two of the programme which is expected to run until autumn 2018. Once this stage concludes, the project teams can apply for stage three funding to develop a scaled prototype device for real sea testing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney.
WES, a subsidiary of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and funded by the Scottish Government, will support all projects that successfully pass through competitive stage gate reviews during the programme.
This latest announcement from WES brings the total investment by the organization in wave energy technology development to £24.6 million (US$31.8 million) across 56 projects in just over two years.
Tim Hurst, WES managing director, 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.”
The four projects awarded were: