A Scottish company is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the moment offshore generated wave power was first fed into the national grid.
The electricity was produced by a prototype Pelamis machine at the Orkney-based European Marine Energy Centre.
This was a major achievement for Pelamis Wave Power and demonstrated the feasibility and potential of harnessing the power of ocean waves.
In the decade that followed the milestone moment, the design of the technology has progressed from the first prototype to the second generation Pelamis P2 machines currently being tested at EMEC.
The company has also gathered a mountain of operational data and experience, which will steer ongoing research and development of a fully commercial machine.
The P2 machines on test at EMEC have now generated almost 250 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity. They have experienced over 90 per cent of sea state occurrences for an average year, including individual waves of almost 10 metres.
Richard Yemm, Pelamis chief executive, said: “The progress we have made in the last 10 years has been exceptional.”
This includes the design, build and operation of six full scale machines and 15,000 hours of operations at sea.
He added: “The team is now focussed on optimising the technology, reducing the cost of energy and delivering the first stage of a commercial scale wave array over the next few years. Successful delivery of this will pave the way for large deployments in the future.
“Developing any new technology is challenging, in the marine environment even more so, but having established this leading position and with so many of the key milestones behind us, we can now look forward with confidence to delivering a commercial wave energy sector over the coming years.”
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