Support for Swedish wave plant

The Swedish Energy Agency will contribute SEK139m (£12m) of the total investment of approximately SEK250m (£22m).

Once built, the plant will be the biggest of its kind in the world - comprising 420 interconnected units that will deliver a total output power of approximately 10MW.

The agency’s support will help the companies create a demonstration plant and assist in the further development of Seabased Industry’s technology to show its full commercial potential.

Before the plant can be built, permission will be required from the Swedish Environment Authority and the European Union’s approval will be needed before the Swedish government’s can provide the financial support.

Seabased Industry has close ties to the a Renewable Electric Energy Transformation Center at the University of Uppsala. The research there is led by Prof Mats Leijon who, together with Dr Hans Bernhoff, founded the company.

Seabased’s wave-power technology uses the water motion in the waves to directly drive wave-power plants. The active element is a directly driven permanent-magnet linear generator designed to take advantage of the slow movement of the waves transferred to it via a buoy on the ocean surface. The buoy action is transferred directly to the generator with no intermediate mechanical gearing.

Seabased’s wave energy converter uses a buoy directly connected by a wire to the linear generator