Seabased Receives SEK 139 Million for Wave Power Project

The project now being awarded a grant from the Swedish Energy Agency is intended to demonstrate a full-scale wave power plant in operation. The technology that Seabased has developed has been assessed to be one of few comprehensive concepts offering efficient solutions for large-scale electricity production from wave power plants.

“There is a lot of wave energy power in the world and this technology to produce electricity is very promising. It is also great joy to see the co-operation between a small innovative company and a large energy supplier” says Tomas Kåberger, General Director of the Swedish Energy Agency.

The grant of SEK 139 million from the Energy Agency for the demonstration plant involves the largest wave power park ever to be built now being set to become a reality. A total of approx. 420 wave power transformers will be manufactured in Lysekil in order to subsequently be placed into service and evaluated in the sea northwest of Kungshamn/Smögen in the Municipality of Sotenäs.

“Every unit can be exchanged individually without interrupting the power production. This makes the system scalable and insensitive when it comes to maintenance, possible stops or interference in production” says Birgitta Palmberger, director Swedish Energy Agency.

The energy relevance of the project from Seabased is assessed to be of substantial significance since the technical potential for wave power within Sweden's economic zone is estimated to be approx. 10 TWh and the global potential is thought to be on the order of 10,000 – 15,000 TWh. 

More information:
Anna Carlén, Energy Agency Administrator, phone +46 16-544 2080
Birgitta Palmberger, Energy Agency Department Head, phone +46 16-544 2161

Background:

In December 2008, the Energy Agency published the availability of SEK 875 million for the demonstration and commercialisation of second-generation fuels and other energy technologies. These funds will be used during 2009-2011 and will contribute to showing to the business community the potential that exists for investments in large-scale demonstrations of new technologies with a significant export potential.

The published notice primarily concerned demonstration plants for second-generation biofuels and secondarily the demonstration and commercialisation of other energy technologies of substantial national significance and an extensive potential for exports, for example technology involving vehicles and electricity production. Projects that have already been awarded grants within the scope of the published notice include:

• Chemrec AB: extraction of biofuel from black liquor.
• Göteborg Energi AB: a plant for the transformation of low-quality forest industry waste into high-quality fuel - biomethane.
• Södra Cell AB: a full-scale demonstration of the LignoBoost concept integrated into the factory at Mörrum.
• Volvo Personvagnar AB: electrical car for urban traffic.