Engineering news
Wave energy specialist Pelamis Wave Power is calling in administrators after failing to secure new funding.
The company, which was founded in 1998, designs, manufactures and operates the Pelamis wave energy converter.
It is widely regarded as one of the world's most advanced wave energy technology companies.
A statement on the company's website said the board had reluctantly moved to appoint an administrator “to assess the options for securing the future for the business and employees of the business”.
The statement insisted that that the company had recently received a strong endorsement of its leading position in the wave energy sector from independent consultants following a series of due diligence exercises. It read: “This work included detailed assessments of the onward commercial viability of the technology and designs. The combination of over 350 man-years of experience in the team, some 15,000 hours of real grid connected test data and intensive parallel R&D work gives Pelamis a unique platform from which to develop and demonstrate the viability of its technology for commercial deployment at scale.
“The directors and employees of Pelamis are dedicated to the success of this revolutionary technology, and are committed to working with the administrator when appointed, the Scottish and UK Governments and any future partners to ensure its success.”
The Pelamis prototype was first tested at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in August 2004 and became the first commercial scale offshore wave power machine to successfully generate electricity into the national grid.
Following the successful testing of the full scale prototype machine, an order was secured for three full scale Pelamis machines from Portuguese electricity utility Enersis. Officially opened in September 2008, the Aguçadoura Wave Farm was located off the northwest coast of Portugal and had a total installed capacity of 2.25MW.
In February 2009, E.ON placed an order for the first of a next generation Pelamis machine, the P2. The second Pelamis P2 machine to be sold to a utility customer was announced in March 2010, when Pelamis secured an order from ScottishPower Renewables, part of Iberdrola Renewables. These machines were being tested at the EMEC site in Orkney.
More recently, Pelamis Wave Power had been actively seeking a strategic partner capable of taking its wave energy technology into serial production.
Box – How Pelamis works.
Pelamis is an offshore wave energy converter that uses the motion of waves to generate electricity. The machine operates in water depths greater than 50m and is typically installed 2-10km from the coast. The machine is rated at 750kW with a target capacity factor of 25-40 per cent, depending on the conditions at the chosen project site.
The machine is made up of five tube sections linked by universal joints which allow flexing in two directions. The machine floats semi-submerged on the surface of the water and inherently faces into the direction of the waves. As waves pass down the length of the machine and the sections bend in the water, the movement is converted into electricity via hydraulic power take-off systems housed inside each joint of the machine tubes, and power is transmitted to shore using standard subsea cables and equipment.
Each of the power take-off units at the joints of the machine are identical, and operate independently from each other with redundancy of all main components.
The power take-off system is driven by hydraulic cylinders at the joints, which resist the wave-induced motion and pump fluid into high pressure accumulators, allowing generation to be smooth and continuous.