FloWave Running for Two Scottish Renewables Awards

The FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility is in the running for two major awards at this year’s Scottish Renewables Green Energy Awards.

The wave and tidal test tank has been shortlisted in the prestigious Engineering Excellence Award and is also a finalist in the Best Innovation Award.

In addition, FloWave’s equipment subcontractor Edinburgh Designs Limited, which designed the circular tank, is competing for the Best Supplier Award; and Edinburgh University’s Professor David Ingram has been shortlisted in the Contribution to Skills Award for his role in the establishment of IDCORE – a four year engineering PhD programme, two Research Engineers from which will utilise the FloWave facility as part of the innovative industry / academic scheme.

Commenting on the shortlist, FloWave Chief Executive Officer Stuart Brown said:

This shortlist recognises the impact the FloWave facility is already making across the wave, tidal and offshore energy sectors in the UK and beyond.

I should like to thank Scottish Renewables for this wonderful recognition and for shortlisting FloWave within two exceptionally competitive engineering award categories. Given the standard of the other nominees this will be a very well-deserved victory for whoever wins on the night!

These nominations are not just about the single achievement of FloWave, but rather the collective effort of many dedicated professional engineers and academics whose combined vision and effort over a number of years has allowed this unique concept for an ocean test facility to come to fruition. On behalf of everyone involved with FloWave I would like to express our deepest gratitude to the believers, the funders and in particularly our first users for embracing this idea so passionately.

A special thank you is due of course to our initial funders the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, and to the University of Edinburgh for not only providing the loan funding to get the facility built in the first place, but also for their persistence and continued belief and support for the project through the two-and-a-half year build process. Finally I should like to thank Scottish Enterprise for their contribution in helping FloWave make the step up from being not only the world’s most sophisticated wave and current test tank for academic research, but to being a truly world-class test facility of international importance for commercial research, development and innovation.

I would also like to thank main contractors Graham Construction and Edinburgh Designs Limited. They made this facility – quite literally! EDL in particular immersed themselves in the task and worked collaboratively with us to overcome the technical, hydrodynamic and control system challenges that such a novel design presented. I look forward to working with them over the coming years on this and other projects, and wish them all the best with their own nomination.

We very much look forward to the awards ceremony in November. 

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