Lobby launched in support of revolutionary wave power device

A company with plans to manufacture a revolutionary new wave power device has held a series of meetings with MSPs to secure funding to allow testing and demonstration of the technology. Resen Waves, the Danish company behind the Resen Wave technology, is planning to open an office in Aberdeen soon. It is a novel approach since it hopes to go directly to market to provide wave-powered buoys to supply off grid sensors and instruments on the seabed and real-time data communication with the sensors. 

After completion of a successful two-year test and demonstration (T&D) programme the company intends to base manufacturing in Aberdeen to fulfil orders arising from industries such as offshore oil and gas decommissioning, geotechnical surveying and offshore wind. It is planned to do the T&D at the European Marine Energy Centre EMEC in Orkney, and the Scottish Government is being asked to grant £250,000 to fund this.

Per Resen Steenstrup, the Managing Director, after whom the technology is named, said” The approach behind Resen Waves is different to what has been tried before with wave power. It is a bottom-up method where we start with a small device for a specialised off grid market as opposed to the top-down methods tried before to supply big scale power to the grid. We are trying an incremental market method in smaller scale rather than starting off with big machines, which requires feed-in tariffs, which are not available.

The Resen Wave machine has few moving parts, no complicated hydraulic systems and a low weight to power ratio. The machine has been developed over 7 years and includes a long-life carbon fibre spring designed with the help of a Danish technological institute. Steenstrup was previously Managing Director of the Wavestar wavepower project, which was an attempt to develop a large-scale wave power device.  He further commented: “I’ve learned a lot from Wavestar and now have a model that can go directly to market. But we need some support from Government for business development through testing and demonstration to give us credibility and publicity to get orders for machines. At the moment the Scottish Government’s wavepower programme is only funding technology rather than business development.’

Dr David Toke, a renewable energy expert from the University of Aberdeen who is helping (on a pro bono basis) to promote the efforts to gain Government support said: ‘The Resen Wave concept is revolutionary. It fits in exactly with innovations theory in that revolutionary innovations start in niche markets and then optimise. This happened with wind power and solar PV which started off filling small-scale off-grid needs, and then spread to mainstream markets as costs fell. A big advantage of the Resen Wave concept is that it can get orders without the need for feed-in tariffs set by Government.’

 Details of the Resen Wave technology can be accessed at the webpage http://www.resenwaves.com/

See coverage in 'Energy Voice'; https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/187149/danish-firm-look-to-make-waves-with-new-aberdeen-premises/