Aquamarine Power waves hello to £6m investment

Wave energy specialist Aquamarine Power today announced it has secured another £6m in funding, which will go towards the £50m required to complete its second-generation Oyster 2 generator.

Aquamarine confirmed earlier today that it had raised the funding, but is staying tight-lipped on where the money originated.

A spokesperson for the company would only name-check existing investors, including Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Enterprise, a number of Norwegian investors and Sigma Capital Group, as having been involved in the latest round.

The company is believed to have secured around £30m in funding for all of its activities to date.

The spokesperson said the latest funding would be divided between meeting the £50m costs of completing the Oyster 2 800KW wave energy device and taking it through to commercialisation and providing additional "working capital" for the company.

Aquamarine said it is raising the money for Oyster 2 in stages and the latest round of funding is the second such stage following an announcement in September 2009 that it had secured £10 million towards the project.

"The company still has approximately £35million to raise to meet the £50million for commercialisation," the spokesperson confirmed.

The Oyster devices work by using wave power to pump water into onshore turbines that then generate energy. By keeping the energy generation element on-shore the company believes it can reduce maintenance costs and create a more durable device than those of rival wave energy technologies.

Aquamarine is currently tendering for contracts to manufacture Oyster 2, a demonstration version of which is due to be completed this year and placed in-situ in summer 2011.

Initially, three Oyster 2 devices are expected to be manufactured and linked to an onshore 2.4 MW hydro-electric turbine at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

Commenting on the most recent round of funding, Aquamarine Power chief executive Martin McAdam said it was an endorsement of the significant progress the company had made over the last 12 months.

"The additional fundraising enables us to progress to the next phase – the manufacture and installation of Oyster 2 and we will announce the award of these contracts shortly," he said.