Marine Power Systems (MPS) is set to further develop its technology that incorporates wind and wave power after being awarded £3.5 million of grant funding through the UK Government Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) Demonstration Programme.
MPS is the only UK floating offshore wind developer to be awarded this funding under the programme, which supports the development of innovative floating offshore wind technologies and forms part of the UK Government Net Zero Innovation Portfolio born out of the Prime Minister’s ten-point plan for a green revolution.
The company has developed a modular and flexible floating platform technology that can be configured to harness wind and wave energy or as a combined solution at grid scale. The technology is based on a structurally efficient tetrahedral design and has a significantly reduced system mass. Its unique and modular design is straightforward to assemble, deploy and maintain, supporting local content delivery through a decentralised logistics model., said MPS.
The wave energy converter has a unique wave energy capture mechanism – directly and efficiently harnessing both the heave and surge energy of the wave. Each energy absorber can capture over a megawatt of power, and each device has multiple absorbers, leading to significant multi megawatt power output per machine.
“This funding award comes at an incredibly exciting time for the business and further demonstrates the unwavering commitment the UK is making to the development of floating offshore wind,” commented Gareth Stockman, CEO, Marine Power Systems. “The global market is developing rapidly, and it is following a similar path to early stage fixed offshore wind. Our best-in-class technology delivers significantly reduced cost of energy and an optimal solution for industrial scale farms, placing us in a prime position to deliver on this global opportunity.”
Whilst offshore winds in shallow waters have been harnessed by fixed bottom wind turbines the wind and wave energy in deep water remains largely unharnessed and represents around 80% of the exploitable energy resources of our oceans.
MPS is now working on the deployment of a grid connected commercial megawatt scale wind and wave device in northern Spain at the Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BiMEP) as well as the deployment of a pre-commercial scale array at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Orkney.
