Ocean Power Technologies has also been invited to become a member of the Tokyo Wave Power Initiative, a committee including the city of Tokyo, regional governments and national agencies involved in the promotion of new energy sources.

The initial phase of the wave power project will be for Ocean Power Technologies and the consortium to work with the Japanese government to increase the recognition of wave power in Japanese energy policy, and to identify favourable sites for wave power stations and assess their commercial prospects.

Subject to the successful identification of a project site and completion of economic assessments, the parties plan to enter into an agreement to build a demonstration wave power plant with up to three of the Ocean Power Technologies’ PowerBuoys®.

The trial wave power plant would provide the basis for the expected building of a commercial-scale Ocean Power Technologies wave power station with an initial capacity of 10 MW or more. Total output from the wave power station would be sold to electric utilities in Japan.

Under the anticipated agreement to build the demonstration plant, Ocean Power Technologies will sell the equipment for the power station to the Consortium. For subsequent wave power stations, the Consortium will provide manufacturing and maintenance of the power stations and on-going plant operations, while Ocean Power Technologies will provide its PowerBuoy technology under license and also sell certain subsystems of the plant to the Consortium.

Japan’s recently elected Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has pledged to target a 25% cut in green-house gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. The government also plans to introduce a feed-in tariff, or other financial reward, for renewable energy production as part of its intentions to boost renewable energy sources to about 10% of primary energy supply by 2020.