Having worked closely with the High-Growth Start-up Unit and received two previous SMART awards, AlbaTERN has now been awarded £617,000 through the Scottish Enterprise WATERS2 fund.

The cash boost will allow the company to deploy its first array of WaveNET demonstrators, consisting of up to six 7.5kW SQUID wave energy converter modules. The total project will cost around £1.3 million.

"Securing this grant is an important landmark for the company and we are pleased that the due diligence carried out validates both our technology and approach," says David Findlay, AlbaTERN’s Chief Technology Officer.

"The team has worked extremely hard to understand and overcome the various technical challenges of this unique and exciting project and it will be good to see the technology working in real sea conditions."

AlbaTERN’s modules are currently rated at 7.5kW and, although lower than others have used, it has allowed the development of the technology at a significantly lower cost.

David Campbell, Chief Financial Officer, explains:

"As well as reducing the amount of development capital that is required to get the prototypes into the water, the smaller devices are being developed with markets in aquaculture and off grid communities in mind.

"The research that we have carried out shows that these are valuable and global markets. Some of the next steps involve identifying and developing pilot projects in aquaculture and remoter communities to prove that we can produce useful power for these markets, and the wave energy converters can be handled by boats and equipment already available in these areas."

Next steps

• More information is available from AlbaTERN
• Support for high growth start up businesses
• Funding and support for energy businesses