Marine energy capture device seeks investment

Enthusiastically described as the “Most exciting development in renewable energy since the solar panel”, the WITT claims to be the only device in the world that can capture energy from all movement and turn it into electricity. The company claims that no other energy system can exploit the full spectrum of movement, enabling it to harvest power from water (sea, river or tidal), wind, human or animal motion.

WITT Ltd will launch a £750,000 equity raise through the world’s leading crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube, to take the WITT technology into manufacturing for its first application – the 200-Watt Marine WITT.

The Marine WITT will provide autonomous power for marine applications, such as large-scale survival units, desalination, offshore fish farms and a range of products that need a constant power source, even in the harshest of environments. As well as providing the first units for sale it will also showcase the WITT’s capability to generate large-scale ocean power.

The WITT’s multi award winning technology is patented and has the support of global partners Schaeffler, Ricardo, and Gibbs Gears. It also has the support of the Universities of Bristol, Plymouth and Southampton. In addition, WITT won ‘pitch@palace’ in October 2015 after HRH Duke of York saw the technology at Plymouth University’s wave tank.

The inventor of the WITT, Martin Wickett said: “The WITT’s key advantages over other wave energy converters, or WECs, are that it captures energy from chaotic motion, in any combination – clockwise, anti-clockwise, up and down, and back and forth (6 degrees) and the sealed unit greatly reduces maintenance costs. We believe this makes it the optimum technology to generate renewable electricity from the sea.”

Having the support of global key partners with expertise in designing and deploying wave power technologies at sea will allow WITT Ltd to put the technology into action and to bring robust products to market.

WITT’s chairman, Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent KCB, CBE, former Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines said: “There is movement all around us and being able to convert energy from that movement into usable electric power is a truly ground breaking development.”

WITTs can be built from centimetres to metres and could be used in huge range of applications, not only in marine but in all areas where there is motional energy. In the future, WITTs could collect Natural Occurring Motional Energy (NOME) from humans or animals to power a wide range of consumer items as a portable power solution.

The Crowdcube campaign went live on Monday 7^th March on www.crowdcube.com/wittenergy

By Jake Frith