Additionally, the company’s non-executive director Fred Gardner, the originator of the Archimedes Wave Swing, won a Technology Pioneer Award, which recognises exceptional individual inventors and designers of viable ocean energy devices. Mr Gardner is a professional engineer with over 25 years experience in production engineering, maintenance and the development of new engineering concepts through R&D.

The company recently confirmed that their first wave energy system will be installed in Orkney next year, with a 250kW pre-commercial demonstration prototype to be deployed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).

AWS’s decision to install its wave power system at EMEC was facilitated by £2.128m grant support from the Scottish Executive and follows the renewed commitment towards wave energy given by the British Government in May’s Energy White Paper.

Building on the work at EMEC next year, AWS Ocean Energy plans to construct a first mini wave farm of 500kW Archimedes units by the third quarter of 2009, expanding to 20 units within a year. The company expects to have over 100 units installed by 2013.

The installation at EMEC follows a successful pilot project by the company in Portugal and subsequent engineering development. Rigorous testing at EMEC will validate the advanced numerical modelling by the company, giving confidence in prediction of the device’s operational performance in a range of weather conditions.

The Archimedes Wave Swing is a cylinder shaped buoy, moored to the seabed. Passing waves move an air filled upper casing against a lower fixed cylinder, with the up and down movement converted into electricity. The device is intrinsically simple, with the upper casing ‘floater’ the only main moving part.