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Marine Renewables

Funding for Oscillating Water Column development

01 Jun 2008

A partnership between Cornwall based wave energy developer Orecon; Peter Brotherhood Ltd, a leader in the design and manufacture of turbines; Converteam, the UK’s largest supplier of electrical systems to the renewable market and Cranfield University, is to receive a £500,000 grant from the Technology Strategy Board to carry out development work on Oscillating Water Column (OWC) technology, used in Orecon’s wave energy buoys.
Brotherhood's 'HydroAir' OWC air turbine.
Brotherhood's 'HydroAir' OWC air turbine.

The work to be carried out by the partnership will advance the hydrodynamic modelling of the OWCs and the development of Brotherhood’s ‘HydroAir’ OWC air turbine in order to leverage maximum overall system efficiency and reliability of the raw wave energy capture to the delivery of grid compliant electrical power.

David Crisp, CEO of Orecon said, ‘We are very proud to be working with the other partners on further developing our technology. The knowledge and experience that the partnership brings will enable us to move the OWC technology forward much faster and more effectively to enable us to move into production earlier with an even higher confidence of success.'

Orecon's first wave energy buoy is scheduled to be deployed off the Cornish coast in the summer of 2010. The company is actively addressing site selection and mitigation of potential environmental impact to ensure responsible engineering, respectful of the marine environment and its users.

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Brotherhood's

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