Pelamis Wave Power Completes £5M Financing Round

7 November 2008

Pelamis Wave Power Ltd. (PWP), which recently completed the build of the world’s first wave farm off the coast of Portugal (earlier post), completed a €5 million (US$7.9 million) financing round. The round was supported by a number of existing shareholders including Emerald Technology Ventures, Statoilhydro Venture, BlackRock, Atmos and SPG Sustainable Performance Group.

The fundraising also included a €2-million investment from Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Venture Fund (SVF), a co-investment fund where Scottish Enterprise invests alongside private sector partners in innovative Scottish companies.

The new funds will support ongoing investment in core research and development and ongoing development of PWP’ manufacturing processes and facilities. The additional finance will also enable the company to accelerate the build of the first of its next generation of wave energy converters.

The Pelamis is a semi-submerged, articulated structure composed of four cylindrical sections linked by hinged joints, at each of which is placed a Power Conversion Module, each rated at 250 kW. The Pelamis, which is 120-meters long and 3.5-meters in diameter, swings head-on into incident waves.

Each of the three Power Conversion Modules resists the wave-induced motion of the joints with four hydraulic rams—two for heave (horizontal axis), two for sway (vertical axis). The rams pump high-pressure oil through hydraulic motors via smoothing accumulators.

The hydraulic motors drive electrical generators to produce electricity. Power from all the joints is fed down a single umbilical cable to a junction on the sea bed. Several devices can be connected together and linked to shore through a single seabed cable.