A US company aims to break into Europe’s wave power industry, despite fierce competition in the marine technology market.
“Wave energy can help because it is one of the few vastly available renewable resources that can act like baseload power. The trick is you have to deliver a device that is survivable [and] maintainable in one of the harshest environments but … can also deliver that competitive cost,” Reenst Leseman, CEO of Columbia Power Technologies, recently said.
Leseman said that his company’s Manta design, so-called because it mimics manta-ray propulsion, was superior to its rivals such as Pelamis Wave Power, based in Scotland, because it is made from fiberglass and could convert energy from surge (horizontal) and heave (up and down) wave action.
Until the tide turns for the wave power industry in the US, Columbia would look to flourishing markets in Europe before selling to the domestic market, Leseman told the Clean Tech Open National Investor Conference in San Jose, California.
“The initial commercial opportunity is in Europe,” Leseman said. “Europe is repeating its commitment to wave power as it has done with offshore wind. Five to seven years from now [it will change in the US] but in that time, Europe will have spent $50 billion continuing to build out their offshore wind capacity.
“European utilities and power producers are driving that growth – the same ones that have signed up to the wave energy market,” Leseman said.
“European utilities tend to be different from their [US] counterparts, they have a different risk profile, they are early adopters and they show willingness to spend their balance sheets on less mature technologies.”
The UK market is developing with the aid of government funding, a Renewable Obligation Credits (ROCs) program and the granting of leases for six wave and four tidal sites off the coast of Scotland which could have a nameplate capacity of 1.2 GW. According to Lesser, the European market may be particularly attractive because of streamlined permitting and regulations and the price of energy underpinned by ROCs.
“Europeans [have] permitting and regulations that we can only dream about here in the US. In the UK they’ve already leased 700 MW of wave energy leases off the coast. And most importantly they have robust pricing support, which is necessary for this market to take off, with capacity targets for the wave energy market at $1.5 billion between now and 2015/2016 and another $5-$6 billion through 2020.”
According to Leseman, UK’s Carbon Trust had estimated that the wave and tidal power industry would be worth $500 billion over the next 30 years.
“Even if that figure is wrong it shows the tremendous momentum that’s going on in Europe for the wave energy market.”
The Oregon and Virginia based company has already raised $9 million in funding so far: $7 million from the US Navy and Department of Energy, and $2 million in founders’ capital.
Leseman said that the company was in talks with its first potential European partner and hoped to sign a deal with them by the end of the year.
Photo Caption: Visitors watch a manta ray swimming in the worlds’ largest aquarium at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan’s southern island of Okinawa.
