Scottish wave energy company, AWS Ocean Energy, has secured a £2 million investment from Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Co-investment Fund and the Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1 B.V. (STVF1), an affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell.
This is the first-ever investment in AWS Ocean Energy made by Scottish Enterprise whilst it is AWS Ocean’s second tranche of investment from the STVF1, which is managed by Kenda Capital B.V.
The new investment enables AWS Ocean to take forward its plans to develop and deploy its wave power technology as well as help the company in its work to design associated technologies, such as mooring systems, for wider use in the wave and tidal energy sectors.
The investment follows a review of the company’s technology which it claims has resulted in significant improvements to its AWS-III wave power system. The design builds on extensive research including offshore testing and detailed modelling of the AWS technology.
The improved system will have a generating capacity of between 2.4 and 4MW.
AWS Ocean Energy is presently undertaking component and sub-system testing and qualification and is aiming to deploy a full-system prototype AWS-III during 2011. The company is confident that this will lead to deployment of a pre-commercial demonstrator plant during 2013. Throughout this process, the AWS Ocean team will draw on the advice and support of the company’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) which was established following STVF1’s first investment in 2008.
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