Aquamarine Power

“Our business model is to develop our technology and at the same time build a pipeline of consented wave energy sites around the world.”

Aquamarine Power is at the forefront of development of innovative wave technology, the Edinburgh-based company aims to be producing electricity in commercial quantities by 2014.

A major milestone for Aquamarine Power came in summer 2009 with the installation of the first Oyster wave energy converter at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

The peak power generated by each Oyster unit will be around 800 kW with a commercial wave farm consisting of 10 or more Oyster modules generating up to 10 MW of power.

With a joint venture with Scottish and Southern Energy Renewables (SSE), and the proof of Oyster’s capabilities, investment in Aquamarine Power’s future has included £5.1 million from the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change and £3 million from the Scottish Government, the money going into the development of the next-generation Oyster 2 device.

The SSE Renewables Aquamarine Power joint venture has already secured a lease agreement for a 200MW site off the west coast of the Orkney mainland and is aiming to deploy an array of 10-20 MW capacity, by 2014.

Aquamarine Power CEO, Martin McAdam, said:

“Aquamarine Power’s long-term goal is to make marine energy mainstream. Our business model is to develop our technology and at the same time build a pipeline of consented wave energy sites around the world. By developing our product and our market in parallel we can ensure we will have utility customers in place by the time our technology comes to maturity.

“In less than two years we have gone from under ten staff to nearly 50, with substantial funding and backers in place. Our business is extremely fortunate to be working with some tremendous partners, including SSE Renewables, BAE Systems and not least our long-term collaboration with Queen’s University Belfast.

“However it is still a significant challenge for our business to attract further investment to take our company through to commercialisation.

How SDI helped

"SDI bring ideas and insight to our business, they are also receptive to our ideas on how they might help us, and have managed to unlock useful funding streams. They have also helped us in areas such as marketing, staff development and exploring market opportunities overseas.

“Scotland has a brilliant market support system for marine energy, and when you tie that up with leading test facilities in Orkney, the leasing round by the Crown Estate, and real support in terms of grant aid from both the Scottish and UK governments, that genuinely makes Scotland the best place in the world to be a wave energy company.

“The next challenge is to provide the correct package of support to pull in the significant private investment this industry urgently needs.”

 Learn how SDI's overseas market support services can help your company explore new markets