Wavebob confident of results from US research base

IRISH WAVE energy company Wavebob predicts that its new north American base will expedite development of full-scale technology off the Atlantic coastline.

The company has established a research division in Annapolis, Maryland, home to the US Naval Academy and the world's largest wave tank.

The move is the latest in a series of partnerships that it has undertaken with international companies and research institutions.

Earlier this year, it established a joint venture with Swedish electricity company Vattenfall to develop a 250MW wave farm off the west coast of Ireland. Its oil and gas partner is Technology Ventures, a subsidiary of Chevron.

It is also working with Georgia Tech Research Institute in North America and with University College, Cork.

Mr Andrew Parish, Wavebob chief executive, said that the "open innovation" approach adopted by the six-year-old Kildare-based company allows it to undertake parallel research programmes and secure funding and access to customers.

Wavebob is one of several Irish companies which have developed electricity-generating wave energy prototypes, located at the Marine Institute/Sustainable Energy Ireland test site off Spiddal, Co Galway.

Earlier this year, Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan initiated a €26 million ocean energy programme, but US Ambassador to Ireland Thomas C Foley was recently critical of the slow pace of development here.

Ireland's natural advantages due to weather, Atlantic location and current sources of fossil-fuel-based electrical power gave it a distinct advantage, Mr Foley said.

"Yet it doesn't feel to me that people are aware that they are in a race here," the ambassador told The Irish Timeslast month.

The US venture capital market was "highly developed" for supporting this technology, he said.

Mr Parish says Maryland was selected by Wavebob due to the cluster of research and technology expertise available. "Maryland is literally overflowing with naval architects, and its wave tank is equivalent in size to two Croke Parks" he said.

Wavebob's energy converter involves using an oscillating device to absorb energy. The company says that the design responds well to long-period waves generated by ocean swell. At full scale, the device can produce 1MW of energy, with average output of over 500kW at sites in the north Atlantic and Pacific.