Aquamarine Power Ltd and Queen’s University Belfast

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Making Waves - Aquamarine Power Ltd and Queen’s University Belfast Continue Their Work Together

Marine Renewables is an area of real potential in the UK. The CleanTech top 100 highlighted this as all of the seven marine renewable companies listed were situated in the British Isles (six in the UK and one in Ireland). The geographic location of our island group has undoubtedly attributed to this; the UK being influenced by its long fetch, south-westerly winds and ocean current systems, all of which assist in generating waves to power these renewable projects. However location alone would not have been enough to power this emergence of a new industry, another reason for the UK’s success in marine projects is the people behind the technology; the companies investing in the technology’s development and committed to taking forward, and the universities working hard to improve understanding, make technological advances and provide a workforce trained for this market. The recent announcement of a five-year partnership between Aquamarine Power Ltd and Queen’s University Belfast will harness this combined people power and give a ‘vital boost’ to the widespread production of energy from wave-generated power. We speak to Aquamarine Power’s CEO Martin McAdam about the company’s history of working with academic institutes and his hope for what the project will produce over the next five years.

Founded in 2005 Aquamarine power has gone from strength to strength. As recently as last year the company was heralded in an index of start-up businesses to look out for, but whilst many start-ups are cautious of what the current economic climate may mean for their business Aquamarine Power is boldly committing to a five year project; making the statement that they most defiantly plan to be players in this market for some time to come. When asked if this is an intentional statement to make McAdam replies, ‘absolutely, we’ve changed the way the business works and plan on being around for some time to come’. He describes the changes made saying, ‘the founders brought in a very strong management team to get the business established. Its very important to move from the inventive stage to establishing the business’.

Working alongside research institutes is not a new concept to the business that has always had strong ties with the academic world. Professor Trevor Whittaker, head of the Wave Power Research Group (WPRG) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and a non-executive director of Aquamarine Power, founded the company with leading marine energy developer Allan Thomson, before handing the management reins over to CEO Martin McAdam and COO Matthias Haag. The company has since worked with WPRG on the development of their hydroelectric wave power converter, Oyster®, of which a prototype is due to be launched at sea for the first time this summer.

In house the team also appreciate the value of academia, with a quarter of staff holding PhD’s, the most recent of which being a QUB graduate. The partnership will enhance this as funding provided by the company, jointly with the UK’s Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), will contribute to the sponsorship of PhD research students to work on the project. Aquamarine state that, ‘the company is committed to the continued investment in high quality post-graduate training. The partnership will ensure that the brightest PhD students [at QUB] will have the opportunity to work with professionals at Aquamarine and ultimately to join the company’s rapidly growing team of experts.’ McAdam adds, ‘We definitely want to expand our pool of PhD holders, lots of smart people in the business is very important, we are at the cutting edge and want to maintain that.’

As well as providing potential employees to the company, the partnership allows them access to world leading testing facilities and expertise, ‘The wave tank and expertise in running it at [QUB] are second to none’ says McAdam. The Business’s R & D team will work closely with the university’s team to model several devices in the wave power tank at QUB’s virtual test centre. Monitoring carried out at the centre will include loading, survivability and how the devices will interact with one and other in order to develop a product that guarantees to give continuous power out puts in all sea conditions.

Later in 2009 The University is due to open a new, larger wave tank in Portaferry, a town on the coast not far from Belfast. This new facility will build on the knowledge gained in the original tank by allowing the technology to be tested under the effects of multi-directional waves. This will allow for the realistic simulation of the full range of sea conditions, which will be experienced by the devices when deployed in a multi-MW utility scale wave farm. ‘The tanks can simulate real sea states, simulating waves exactly, installing prototypes at sea can be tremendously expensive, we can save millions in the wave tank’ comments McAdam.

In addition to the use of leading testing facilities Aquamarine will also receive access to assistance from some of the world’s leading minds in the development of marine renewables. McAdam states, ‘I am delighted to announce Aquamarine’s continuing relationship with Queen’s world-leading team. Professor Trevor Whittaker is an award-winning expert in wave energy research. He and his group have tested and deployed more devices in their time than any other research facility in the world.’

Professor Whittaker’s knowledge in this area is undisputed; he was the project manager of Britain’s first wave power station and was awarded the ESSO Energy Award in 1994 by the Royal Society. This work led to the development of the 500KW LIMPET plant that was commissioned in 2001, and that now feeds into national energy supply. McAdam is extremely appreciative of his involvement with Aquamarine, ‘Trevor has been involved in deploying devices since 1984 and is very well respected, having that experience to call on is very important to the business. You couldn’t underestimate his and Allan’s involvement in setting the company up, we work well together and want to continue that.’

The Oyster project is a natural next step for Whittaker and his team and will be a vehicle for them to move into the development Multi-MW wave power farms. With regards to this project Whitaker comments, ‘[the partnership] provides focus for the work of our research students, giving them an opportunity to participate in cutting edge research that will benefit society and the environment for current and future generations.’

When speaking about the partnership’s positive impacts McAdam comments, ‘this agreement creates a fantastic opportunity on two fronts. Firstly it provides Aquamarine with access to the University’s world-class wave power test facilities, enabling Aquamarine to continue to enhance the design of Oyster® as a market leading technology, and as importantly, gives us access to the brightest PhD students in this field.’

The first phase of Oyster is due to be launched at sea for the first time this summer. This will be used to test the technology and its installation. The learning from the development of this full-scale demonstrator is already being used at QUB to create phase 2. ‘Having built the full-scale demonstrator we felt that we had learnt a huge amount and wanted to bring that back into second phase,’ Explains McAdam.

Hopes for the 5 year span of the partnership are to constantly improve the project; ‘in order to be competitive we need to have an array of devices in the 10 MW range and installation needs to be simplified,’ says McAdam. ‘We want to constantly improve the device, simplify its installation and prove its reliability, making it more profitable in the market place, we believe that we can start selling in 2012.’

Funding for the company currently comes from shareholders, investors and access to grants. This investment has given the company a brilliant platform to launch into the industry from. ‘I feel there are competitive businesses about that are under capitalized, we have some very strong shareholders, management and a team onboard that makes us without doubt one of leaders in this area. Major shareholders of the company are Scottish and Southern Energy with 47% of the business’s shares.

As well as working with Scottish and Southern the company hopes to produce joint developments with other utilities in order to ensure the best locations. Aquamarine is talking with the crown estate to secure locations with the greatest wave power, such as South West England and North West Scotland, and further a field the company also hope to deploy devices in other high-energy locations such as the west coast of Ireland and the coast of Portugal.

To anyone considering working with a University on a similar project McAdam gives the following advice; ‘Understand clearly what you hope to achieve and have a strong partnership approach in that you have members of your team working there and PhD students that could potentially become employees.’


Martin McAdam will be joining us at our London CleanTech Innovation Forum hosting a group discussion titled ‘Marine Energy – The creation of a new industry’ if you would like to learn more about the day please visit http://www.carbon-innovation.com/cleantech/index.php or call the team on +44 (0) 1883 344 799.