CorPower expands to Scotland ahead of Orkney deployment

Swedish wave energy developer CorPower Ocean has set up a Scottish subsidiary to support its growing activities in the country and prepare for wave energy device deployment off Orkney.

The newly established CorPower Ocean Ltd, with offices in Kirkwall, has already welcomed two new members of the operations team.

Robert Argo has taken the role as Senior Operations Manager, bringing a wealth of experience from operating and maintaining marine energy devices in harsh environments.

In his previous role Robert was responsible for installing and operating floating tidal energy converters.

Mairi Dorward has joined the company as a Senior Operations Engineer, bringing experience from project management, environmental impact assessment and risk based methodology from the oil and gas sector.

Through her work at CorPower, Mairi is also completing an industrial EngD program IDCORE, focused on reliability and operational modelling for wave energy technology.

Patrik Möller, CEO at CorPower, said: “We are delighted to have our Scottish operations up and running, and to have attracted some top talent to our operations team. We are already seeing the immense value of working in the Scottish ocean energy ecosystem, with significant lessons learned from previous wave projects.

“We are looking forward to working closely with Orkney supply chain that brings unique operational experience to the project, having deployed more ocean energy devices than anywhere else in the world.”

Tim Hurst, Managing Director of Wave Energy Scotland, added: “To allow us to use the very best available technology, the WES program is open to technology developers from across Europe. Scotland is the best place to develop and demonstrate wave technology where the wave energy resources exist. This project is a new collaboration between a Swedish power take-off technology provider and the Orkney supply chain to deliver a real sea demonstration of the device.”

CorPower Ocean is currently taking a large-scale wave energy converter through structured verification by dry testing it in a rig in Stockholm, which will be followed by ocean deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre’s (EMEC’s) Scapa Flow test site in Orkney later this year.

The design of CorPower Ocean’s wave energy converter was inspired by the pumping principles of human heart.

The device uses a power take-off (PTO) system that combines the high load capabilities from hydraulics with the efficiency of mechanical drive to produce power.