EUR 6.5M Secured for Human Heart-Inspired Wave Tech

CorPower, a developer of a wave energy converter inspired by the pumping principles of the human heart, has completed a €6.5M funding round, thus securing a critical investment for the next stage of the company’s development and allowing for the third round of testing of its wave energy technology, called the HiWave.

Results from the second stage of HiWave testing confirmed an increase of around 300% in energy capture over traditional wave energy technologies, the company pointed out. The testing was undertaken by CorPower, WavEC Offshore Renewables and Iberdrola Engineering & Construction, which will be joined by the University of Edinburgh and EMEC in the next stage.

CorPower has been selected by Wave Energy Scotland to carry out testing of the technology in Stockholm and Orkney. The Stage 3 program includes a dry testing phase to verify performance and reliability in a controlled on-land environment using an advanced hardware-in-the-loop rig followed by ocean deployment at the Scapa Flow test site on Orkney.

Patrik Moller, CEO of CorPower, said: “This funding now means that we can take a significant step forward towards bringing this cutting edge technology to market and could help enable a fundamental shift in electricity generation from ocean waves.

“By implementing the WaveSpring technology we have created a wave energy product that can compete with other renewable technologies in structural efficiency. Such a shift would not be possible without the support of our partners.”

The WaveSpring technology provides phase control by a negative spring arrangement that inherently widens the response bandwidth of point absorbers without the need for real-time wave information or prediction algorithms. The negative spring module acts directly on the linear mechanism of the buoy. This avoids the losses associated with transmitting large reciprocating energy flows through the PTO system, a challenge that has limited the practical use of phase control methods known as reactive control, the company explains on its official website.

CorPower added that the WaveSpring technology allows for a significantly increased power yield, along with the resonant Wave Energy Converters using less material and lower force PTO (drive train) – providing for a lower cost per KW than existing wave technologies.

“This provides a path to harvesting wave energy at the same competitive cost level as more established renewable technologies, such as offshore wind” CorPower concluded.

Image: CorPower/Archive