Green Ocean Energy is an SME hopeful. Three or so years ago, it developed a free-floating wave device called Ocean Treader but decided that a faster way to market might be to design and build a cousin, Wave Treader, that would clamp on to the substructure of an offshore wind turbine and exploit energy in a commercial symbiotic relationship.
The Aberdeen firm’s CEO, Graeme Bell, is convinced the approach will work.
“There are various reasons why we came up with that … mostly technically and commercially driven,” he told Energy.
“Trying to develop two technologies in tandem was practically impossible, given the current state of financial markets and being realistic.
“Wave Treader offers a chance of getting a wave device to market much more quickly, so enabling us to leapfrog where some of our competitors are with their technologies.
“This approach gives us the opportunity to get grid connected by using existing infrastructure rather than having to instal moorings and separate cabling.
“It means, too, that we’re already working on sites consented by the Crown Estate as opposed to marine developers, where the Pentland Firth is the only site that’s been consented so far.”
Bell said GOE was making decent headway, including testing 15th and 12th scale models of Wave Treader. At the time he was talking with Energy, the intention was to run further trials prior to building the first full-scale prototype about now, though this has since slipped to July.
The plan was to use Arbroath company John F. Henderson to carry out interface steelwork. This firm is also a shareholder in GOE.
Negotiations with other supply-chain candidates continue.
“We will now be starting to build the full-scale prototype in July this year and plan to deploy May/June 2011,” said Bell.
“Unfortunately, I can’t disclose who our supply-chain partners are as we are still negotiating contractual terms with them. However, over 70% of our supply chain is based in Scotland and most come from the oil&gas industry.”
Bell disclosed that he was really looking for a strategic partner prepared to take risk and not just a supplier of product.
While GOE requires just one machine at this time, he said that, if the market worked in the firm’s favour then, by 2015-16, it would be looking to build “significant numbers of devices potential ly”.
A very particular challenge for Bell and his small team, which recently expanded significantly with the arrival of Laura Sarkis – who was recruited from Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group – is that there is plenty of money going out of the door and not much coming in.
So how is it possible to keep GOE alive until it has devices delivering cash flow?
Bell: “To date, our funding has come from three sources. We’ve had public-sector money through Scottish Enterprise grant funding, and funding from N-power through their Juice Fund, which funded the initial feasibility study into Wave Treader. We’ve also received money from private investors, including members of the executive management team.
“To date, we’ve raised about £270,000 of public money.”
“Obviously, grant funding is good because, as investors in the business, it doesn’t dilute our existing shareholding structure. If we can get grant funding, that’s fantastic.
“We’re looking for a combination of private and public money to take us to the next stage. We think that to get us to full-scale prototype will cost roughly £5million. We envisage that we split probably 50:50 public sector and private investment.”
GOE’s cash burn is likely to have lasted more than six years from first concept to the first full-scale 250-tonne machine ready for action.
Defending the lengthy haul, Bell said: “If you look at technology development when you’re starting from scratch to go through the various iterations, it’s a long process regardless of what industry you’re in.
“I think the process may have been quicker if the funding situation had been slightly different. But would it have been significantly different? I’m not sure.
“In terms of our competitors, we are no different. In terms of what happens cash in, cash out, they may have a greater degree of investment behind them, but they are still in a cash-burn situation.
“Our main backers to date have been mainly private individuals. To date, we’ve raised about £700,000. Obviously, that will change as we move to the point where, instead of individual investors, we will have institutional investors.”
The marketplace that Bell has in his sights primarily comprises UK Round Three/Scottish Round wind projects. The installation of hundreds of turbines is likely to start around 2015, which means GOE has to ready with a marketable Wave Treader by then.
In this regard, the existing relationship with N-power is considered very important as this company is seen as a potential future customer.
“We have an ongoing dialogue with them as to how we could potentially commercialise that device; as we do with other developers of Scottish territorial waters sites in Round Three.
“We probably have a better relationship with them than some other site developers and we view them as being a future potential customer of ours in the future.
“Whether they become an investor as well that has yet to be determined. But we certainly view the sites that N-power has been awarded as good locations for us to deploy Wave Treader.”
Bell dismissed the notion that clamping Wave Treaders to wind turbine structures might compromise access, and defended the design in the event of collision from a work or crew boat attending a turbine fitted with the device.
“What we offer with Wave Treader is potentially two access systems to a turbine. At the moment, the main access is a small landing platform on the transition piece. We would offer something similar to that on the interface structure.
“What we’re also planning to offer is a landing platform on the actual sponson.”
But what if the service vessel is a hefty steel-built craft of, say, 25m or longer and its master makes a hash of coming alongside close to the limit in terms of weather and sea state? Will Wave Treader survive a hefty belt?
Bell replied: “That would depend where a vessel strikes the structure.
“We’ve looked at the device from the perspective of point impacts and suchlike. Regarding the sponsons (20m by 5-6m), each is made up of eight individual compartments so if they take a hit and there is water ingress, it should be limited to perhaps one or two compartments.
“One of the things we’re going through to help to verify what we’re doing is get DNV (Det Norske Veritas) to carry out certification of the device. So we will get them to do the initial concept certification and then, as we go through our installation process, they will do the certification on that, too.”
Thus far, Wave Treader has been tested several times at the Strathclyde University tanks and trialled at the NAREC facility in the English north-east, and there are plans to use the Quinetic tank in Southampton.
Bell said that Wave Treader should happily generate in three to six-metre seas, but that it would produce electricity in smaller waves.
One of the problems with wave and tidal devices is that a lot of people involved in trying to develop such technologies haven’t the faintest idea about how the sea behaves.
However, Bell said the GOE team knew what it was taking on.
“One of the advantages that we have is that we come from an oil&gas background and from a background where we have put large moving structures into the water.
“We have an appreciation of how destructive the sea can be, and what we’ve seen from some of our competitors over the last couple of years is that they have realised that having a fantastic concept is only part of it. Coming up with a machine that is actually robust enough for it to survive and harness the energy of the sea is really important.
“We’ve tried to come at it (Wave Treader) with as much of a practical angle as possible, as well as looking at the theory behind it. The two need to be worked together. We have guys in the company who are clever and can do the mathematical modelling, but we also have the capability to look at a concept and ask, ‘Does it look right?’.”
Bell added that there were plans to grow GOE significantly during the current year on the back of fundraising and development.
“But Green Ocean will never be a large organisation. We’ll focus on engineering and developing our IP. We have enough challenges doing that and getting the company to the next stage.
“If we do that successfully, the rest will take care of itself.”
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