Ross Henderson, technology director of Pelamis Wave Power

Just as in the early days of solar and wind energy, there are some heady claims being thrown around about the potential generating capacity of waves.

It has been estimated that in the UK there is 50-90 terawatt-hours of ‘technically and economically recoverable’ energy per year — 14-26 per cent of current demand.

Of course, as the other two aforementioned industries have found out, it’s one thing having the resource and another being able to exploit it and overcome the countless market and technical hurdles. And waves are particularly tricky beasts to tame, characterised by very high energy densities but slow velocities.

This has meant that a range of very different capture technologies have cropped up, from the elegant to the downright wacky.

Through this clamour, Pelamis Wave Power has emerged as a leader in the UK market. Formed in 1998, it made the first commercial-scale wave energy converter to generate electricity to the national grid from offshore in 2004.