Irish wave power gets a boost from DuPont

Wave power devices can take a beating in the open water, but a new application of materials technology from Ireland could help the renewable energy systems survive in what are often rough conditions.

Waterford, Ireland-based Technology from Ideas, a seed investment and commercialization company, has teamed up with Wilmington, Del.'s DuPont (NYSE: DD) to jointly develop a passive protection material technology for wave power systems.

The WaveProtector concept, which involves the use of novel materials coupled with innovative structural modifications, was originally invented by a mechanical engineer at the National University of Ireland, Galway, before being further developed by Technology from Ideas, or TfI.

Dan Richardson, managing director of TfI, told the Cleantech Group that he believes the industry is poised to take off over the next couple of years, but there are still some significant challenges to overcome.

"We're hoping that our technology is going to help address some of those challenges, particularly in terms of survivability, that's really where we're focused," he said. "This technology is a way of making these devices much more robust and more survivable."

The former Royal Navy engineer said, "I've spent many, many a month at sea in very harsh conditions, so I guess I know first hand how difficult these conditions are to survive."

TfI did not disclose the financial terms of its investment in the technology or of its deal with DuPont.

Backed by Ireland's 4th Level Ventures and state development agency Enterprise Ireland, TfI is not a traditional VC. It conducts early stage technology development in its own laboratories, using its own scientists and engineers.

Richardson said the company is interested in renewable energy, medical devices and other technology, and has an energy harvesting system that it's about to start work on.

DuPont came on board with the WaveProtector technology as part of TfI's testing and development program.

"We've been working together, I guess, for almost a year, but it wasn't until the last three to six months in which we've been negotiating this joint development agreement." The deal will allow TfI to access and use DuPont's extensive range of materials and apply them to wave energy devices.

Details of the WaveProtector system are still under wraps, but TfI said the technology has already gone through simulation and wave tank testing, partly conducted at the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre at University College Cork. The government's Sustainable Energy Ireland agency partially funding the testing.

Vancouver, British Columbia's Finavera Renewables (TSX: FVR) has tested its AquaBuOY wave power system at the same research center, along with Australia's Oceanlinx.

Earlier this year, Finavera received a preliminary permit for a large-scale wave energy project in Northern California's Humboldt County (see 100 MW California wave project gets prelim. approval).

Oceanlinx is also moving forward with commercial plans, signing a deal in February with Hawaiian Electric for a 2.7 megawatt project off the northeast coast of Maui (see Marine power project proposed in Maui).

Tidal power, the sister technology of wave power, received a boost recently when the U.K.'s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform published a set of standards for measuring and analyzing the performance of tidal power devices. The standards were assembled by the European Marine Energy Centre in the Orkneys in Scotland, which is currently working on similar standards for wave power testing.

The Orkney site is one of only a handful of sites around the world where ocean water testing is done on wave and tidal power systems.

Some of those systems could end up using the protective material from TfI. Richardson said they're hoping to announce deals with some of the major wave energy companies over the next couple of months.

"It's a passive device, so it's not complex — it's simple, it's cheap. It enables a much simpler structure on the devices themselves," said Richardson. "At the moment there are fairly complex ways of handling freak waves and end-stop problems, whereas our device provides a very simple damping function using non-linear materials."

End-stop problems can occur under extreme wave conditions, when the tidal power system can run out of stroke, causing a bump and creating large, unpredictable loads in the structure.

"Our objective is to provide a sub-system that will be integrated into their device," he said. Technology from Ideas plans to license out the system to industry players. "At the moment we're just going to be delivering prototype-scale components for each of these people we're working with."

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