Today Scottish wave energy pioneer Mocean Energy has raised £2.2 million new equity alongside a £500,000 grant to drive the commercialisation of its wave energy technologies.
The ocean is a tremendous, untapped resource for green energy. Harnessing just one percent of our global wave power resource would power more than 50 million homes and save more than 50 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
Mocean Energy develops wave energy converters to provide ocean equipment and the grid with clean, carbon-free, renewable energy.
The company is currently a key participant in the £2 million Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP) programme in the seas off Orkney which has connected Mocean’s 10kW Blue X wave energy prototype with a Halo underwater battery system developed by Aberdeen intelligent energy management specialists Verlume.
The equity funds come from existing investors, including Equity Gap, Scottish Enterprise and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s venture investment fund, alongside new shareholders Norwegian impact investors Katapult Ocean and MOL PLUS, the corporate venture capital arm of listed Japanese shipping conglomerate MOL.
In addition, Mocean has secured a £499,500 Low Carbon Manufacturing Challenge Fund grant, targeted specifically at the detailed design, build and testing of key subsystems for their small-scale Blue Star wave energy machine.
Mocean Energy has also been awarded £3.2 million in Phase 3 of EuropeWave, a pre-commercial procurement programme, funded through the EU and managed in collaboration with Wave Energy Scotland, the Basque Energy Agency and Ocean Energy Europe.
The new funds will help the Edinburgh and Aberdeen-based company commercialise and secure first orders for Blue Star, which will be built in Scotland targets decarbonising subsea operations in the offshore energy sector.
It will also drive further research and development into their large-scale Blue Horizon technology.
According to Mocean Energy managing director and co-founder Cameron McNatt:
“This new equity investment is significant for Mocean Energy – not just in the quantum invested, but in the additional strengths and specialist expertise our new shareholders bring.
“The grant funding is also vital and has been match-funded through this new equity round. It will help us accelerate the commercial development of our Blue Star technology.”
Anthony Bellafiore, Investment Manager for Katapult Ocean, shared:
“Our investment is the culmination of nearly two years of research and diligence in the burgeoning field of wave energy, which took us across the spectrum of platforms and solutions being developed to capture the still largely untapped resource of wave power.
The Mocean team is poised to play an important role in pushing the world closer to its net zero targets, and we’re looking forward to helping them do so.”
Jane Martin, Managing Director of Innovation and Investment at Scottish Enterprise, says:
“This funding package is a great example of the public and private sectors working together to unlock investment in renewable energy.
“The projects it supports are crucially important. One can completely transform the way power is provided to remote, energy-intensive subsea equipment, while the other addresses the need for reliable, low-cost renewable energy at scale.
Combined, they have the potential to play an important role in the internationally competitive green energy industry that’s emerging right here in Scotland.”
Lead image via Mocean. Photo: Colin Keldie.
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