Renewable Energy Company Profile – Wavegen

Inverness-based Wavegen is widely recognised as a world leader in the field of wave energy and its scientific, engineering and commercial expertise has ensured the company attracts global interest.

Its latest project is at Siadar on Lewis and is being done in partnership with npower, one of the UK’s largest renewable energy companies.

The Siadar scheme is being hailed as ‘a new chapter in the UK’s search for a sustainable future’ and, if built, will harness power from the Atlantic waves in Siadar bay to generate up to 4 megawatts of electricity.

The energy produced each year could supply the average annual electricity needs of around 1500 homes on Lewis and neighbouring Harris.

The planning application to build the new wave power station was recently submitted and, if approved, work could begin as early as next year.

David Langston, Wavegen’s Business Development Manager says: “Siadar is a tremendously exciting project and, in our view, could be the gateway to the best wave resource in the UK.

“The partnership with npower renewables is hugely positive and brings together considerable experience and expertise.

Wavgen was a natural partner for npower. The Siadar wave power station will use technology already successfully developed by Wavegen based on the oscillating water column (OWC) principle and which is used in Wavegen’s LIMPET system on Islay.

The LIMPET was commissioned in 2000, following extensive trials in Inverness at Wavegen’s own state of the art wave tank test facilities, and is the world’s first demonstration plant.

Eight years on and LIMPET has given Wavegen invaluable knowledge and unrivaled experience of how the plant operates.

Since May 2005 Wavegen has been a part of the Voith Siemens Hydro group of companies, one of the worlds leading suppliers of equipment for hydro electric projects.

This has opened up further global markets for Wavegen. One of its most recent is in Spain where Wavegen’s OWC technology is being used to develop the world’s first commercial breakwater energy plant at Mutriku on the Atlantic coast.

Wavegen’s main service offerings include:
• Marine energy devices
• Wave power technology testing
• Wave energy data collection
• Wave tank testing
• Wave resource assessment
• Power take-off specifications

Contact
David Langston
Tel. 01463 238094
Email david.langston@wavegen.com
Web www.wavegen.com

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