Mocean Energy, an Edinburgh-based wave energy company, has received £3.2M in funding from the EU to create and launch a 250kW wave machine in Okrney.

Names Blue Horizon 250, the device is set to be manufactured in Scotland and will be deployed in a grid-connected berth at EMEC in Orkney as early as 2025.

The technology is able to harness energy from natural waves and tides, and can be deployed along coastlines.

It is hoped the project could then pave the way to a small wave farm delivering 1-2 MW of low carbon electricity by 2030. This would help Scotland in achieving its ambitious net-zero goals.

According to the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, it is estimated that around 21.5GW of wave energy could be generated from Scottish waters every year. Scotland currently produces around 10% of the total tidal and wave energy of all of Europe.

The Edinburgh firm has been awarded £3.2m in Phase 3 of EuropeWave, a pre-commercial procurement programme, funded through the EU and managed in collaboration with Wave Energy Scotland, the Basque Energy Agency, and Ocean Energy Europe.

Mocean Energy is one of three wave companies to have been awarded funds in this phase. The other successful companies are IDOM Consulting and CETO Wave Energy Ireland, who will install their devices at the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) in northern Spain.

“We have already demonstrated our technology successfully at small scale and this programme will allow us to build a significantly larger machine based on our proven hinged raft design, and incorporate our novel direct drive generator,” said Cameron McNatt, the co-founder and managing director of Mocean Energy.

“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.

“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 £2 million 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.

The programme has been supported by industry partners alongside the Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC).

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Blue Horizon 250 will be a “significant” scale up from Blue X, the company says, and is designed for commercial applications on islands and remote communities, while also including grid projects and off-grid applications, such as oil and gas and aquaculture.

The Blue X prototype was built in Scotland with around 80 percent local supply chain content, and it is anticipated Blue Horizon will deliver similar levels of local work.

In March, Mocean Energy selected Aberdeen-based TEXO Engineering and Fabrication as its preferred fabrication, assembly and load-out contractor for its future wave energy convertors

The deployment and demonstration of the Blue X at EMEC was funded by Wave Energy Scotland (WES) and supported by Interreg North-West Europe’s Ocean DEMO project.

“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,” Tim Hurst, managing director of WES, said.

Phase 3 will involve the detail design, a full-scale build, and 12 months at-sea testing of a first-of-a-kind wave energy converter (WEC) at EMEC.

Focus areas will include:

• Building a novel power take-off system (PTO) at full-scale – combining a Vernier Hybrid Machine (VHM) with an associated linkage mechanism to boost energy yield/mass;
• Exporting power to the grid – ensuring grid compatibility and compliance;
• Meeting targets set across IEA-OES evaluation areas, and improving across power performance, availability, reliability, and survivability in particular;
• Refining costs and our commercial roadmap – ensuring follow up projects exist that are viable and attractive to customers and end-users.

Further, to complete the full-scale 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 concluded.