Annual Conference 2018

WES Programme updates and other funding opportunities

December 2018

Since establishment in 2014, the WES programme has been developing a number of technology streams, and the annual conference is an opportunity to update everyone on progress and next steps. Details of the main projects themselves are given on the 'Progress Updates' page.

As marine renewable energy is a priority for a number of organisations, attendees were presented with details of additional related funding from both EU and UK sources. 

The file available to download combines the conference agenda and following presentations:

• WES’ Programme News and Future Plans – Peter Dennis and Jonathan Hodges
• WES’ Landscaping Projects - Elva Bannon
• External Funding Opportunities - OCEAN ERA-NET, Marine Energy Alliance, ETP

Speaker Bio - Peter Dennis (Project Manager, Wave Energy Scotland)

Peter joined Wave Energy Scotland as a project manager in December 2015. He has an education in Civil Engineering and has gained extensive project management experience through a variety of roles in both the private and public sectors. Within WES, Peter has been responsible for WES’s oversight of projects in the PTO, Materials and NWEC calls. He has also been involved in the stage gate assessment process on a number of occasions.

Speaker Bio - Jonathan Hodges (Senior Innovation Engineer, Wave Energy Scotland)

Jonathan’s engineering career began in the aerospace industry with Rolls-Royce and the development and testing of aircraft turbofan engines. Following a Masters’ degree in Marine Renewable Energy he moved to the offshore renewables industry, gathering innovation, resource assessment and tecno-economic analysis experience in the wave and tidal sectors. In his role as Senior Innovation Engineer at Wave Energy Scotland (WES) he aims to identify opportunities for innovation and then develop appropriate WES funding calls to support the sector towards achievement of cost competitive wave energy technologies. Jonathan is involved in collaboration activities across Europe and the US to develop tools, common metrics for technology assessment and to seek technology transfer opportunities to advance the sector and support the WES programme.

Speaker Bio - Elva Bannon (Senior Research Engineer, Wave Energy Scotland)

With a background in Mechatronic Engineering (BEng) and Advanced Engineering (MEng), Elva has worked in wave energy technology development since 2007, working on several different technology concepts in Scotland and Ireland. Here she honed her skills in tank testing, data analysis and numerical model validation for scale model tests.
One of her key responsibilities in WES is academic, professional and international engagement to ensure the WES technology programme is targeting the right topic areas and meeting the needs of the sector.

She represents WES on the BSI PEL/114 Committee providing UK input to IEC/TC114 standards development.

Speaker Bio - Karen Fraser (OceanEraNet Coordinator, Scottish Enterprise)

Karen graduated University of Glasgow with Honours in Geography and Economics and a Masters in Town and Regional Planning. Worked in local government planning and economic development, with Scotland Europa, providing EU policy and funding services to Scottish stakeholders and, while on secondment to the Scottish Government, established the Scottish European Green Energy Centre. Currently in the Energy and Low Carbon Technologies team at Scottish Enterprise and coordinator of the OCEANERA-NET FUND project.

Speaker Bio - Jamie Grimwade (Technical Sales and Business Development Executive, FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility)

Jamie is Business Development Executive (Energy) for the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. A qualified Naval Architect, Jamie has 15 years experience of working within the wave and tidal energy sector. Jamie is leading the University’s involvement the mobilisation phase of the Marine Energy Alliance project, a €3.6m INTEREGG NWE project that will support 40 low TRL wave and tidal technology development companies.

Speaker Bio - Norman Morrison (Marine Energy Research and Business Development Manager, Energy Technology Partnership)

Norman is ETP’s Business Development Manager for Marine Energy. Norman has a number of years’ experience as an offshore renewable energy consultant. Much of this work involved helping companies of different sizes to diversify from parallel sectors into the offshore wind, wave and tidal sectors. Norman also works for Wave Energy Scotland helping identify research and partnership opportunities. He has worked closely with enablers, developers and throughout the supply chain on a wide range of topics including funding, market analysis and technology evaluation.

Wave energy and the wider energy sector

December 2018

The Wave Energy Scotland programme fits in to a much larger picture of marine renewable research and development across the world. Speakers from organisations in the marine renewable sector gave details of the potential economic value of wave energy, how WES fit in with international efforts in the sector, and how new technologies need to prepare for raising finance. 

CorPower Ocean tested their C3 wave buoy in Orkney during 2018 following extensive dry testing in Sweden. Patrik shared the experiences and some of the lessons which can be learnt to help other developers achieve success more easily. 

The file available to download combines the following presentations:

• HiDrive PTO – Lessons Learnt from Sea Deployment– Patrik Möller 
• The Economic Value of Wave Energy – Shona Pennock [slides not currently available]
• A Global Perspective – Henry Jeffrey 
• Crowdfunding and Marine Energy – Louise Wilson 

 

Speaker Bio - Patrik Möller (CorPower Ocean)

Patrik is the CEO of CorPower Ocean, a leading wave energy developer bringing a step-change improvement on the efficiency of harvesting wave energy. He is a passionate entrepreneur with experience of building technology start-ups from first idea to multi-national operations. Patrik is a board member of Ocean Energy Europe and ETIP Ocean steering committee. He has a MSc in Chemical Engineering from Lund Institute of Technology and UC Berkeley, California.

Speaker Bio - Shona Pennock (University of Edinburugh)

Shona is a Research Associate in Marine Energy at the University of Edinburgh and an alumna of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Wind Energy Systems at the University of Strathclyde. Her PhD focused on the impact of a single European energy market on the economics and operation of wind power in Scotland, using various dispatch models to investigate the impact of introducing zonal pricing within GB due to the current CfD subsidy framework. Her current work focuses on techno-economic and socio-economic analysis of the marine energy sector.

Speaker Bio - Henry Jeffrey (University of Edinburgh and Chair, IEA-OES)

Henry is a specialist in marine energy roadmaps, action plans and strategies. He is responsible for dissemination and internationalisation within the UK Supergen Marine programme. He holds the position of “Strategy and internationalisation officer” for “Wave Energy Scotland” and chairs the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and the IEA OES group for Ocean Energy.

His international collaboration on the production of marine roadmaps and research strategies, includes Canada, the US, Chile and Mexico. Henry has also coordinated several European marine energy projects including DTOcean which developed design tools for arrays of wave and tidal devices.

Speaker Bio - Louise Wilson (Director, Abundance Investment)

Louise Wilson is a co-founder and joint MD of Abundance which provides debt capital to infrastructure projects for different stages of their development, and regular capital and income to investors. With a strong focus on both the financial and societal contribution of the investments on its platform, Abundance lets individuals, both local and national, invest directly in specific projects of their choice from as little as £5. Abundance has launched fund-raisings for over 35 projects for a total of £80m and was the first crowdfunding platform to offer both an ISA and a pension (SIPP) product. Abundance has raised £10m for SIMEC Atlantis and is currently raising up to £7m of investment for Orbital Marine.

Before Abundance, Louise was Head of Equity Capital Markets at UBS Investment Bank. Louise is on the Advisory Board of Imperial College’s Centre for Climate Finance & Investment.

Project Progress Updates

December 2018

A representative from each of the current projects gave a quick update on their progress up to December 2018, and their plans for future technology development

The file available to download combines the following presentations:

Project Progress Updates: Control Systems, Stage 2

• MaxSim Ltd – Cost of Energy Optimisation by Reinforcement Learning
• Queen Mary University – Adaptive Hierarchical Model Predictive Control of Wave Energy Converters
• Wood – IMPACT – Integrated Marine Point Absorber Control Tool

Project Progress Updates: Structural Materials and Manufacturing Processes, Stage 2

• Arup – Concrete as a Technology Enabler
• CorPower – HydroComp
• Tension Technology International – NetBuoy

Project Progress Updates: Novel Wave Energy Converter, Stage 2

• 4c Engineering – ACER 2
• AWS – Improved Archimedes Waveswing
• Checkmate – Anaconda
• Mocean Energy – Mocean WEC

Project Progress Updates: Power Take-Off, Stage 3

• Artemis – Quantor Hybrid Hydraulic PTO
• Oceaneering – Power Electronic Controlled Magnetic Gear
• Umbra Cuscinetti – Electro-Mechanical Reciprocating Generator
• University of Edinburgh – Project Neptune