The grant to OPT is part of a total award of €4.5m to a consortium of companies, including OPT, to deliver a PowerBuoy wave energy device under the WavePort project, with wave prediction capabilities and a ‘wave-by-wave’ tuning system.

It is anticipated that the PowerBuoy wave energy device will be deployed at the Santoña site in Spain, where OPT has worked on a wave energy project under contract from Spanish utility Iberdrola.

OPT will be responsible for the design, supply and deployment of the PowerBuoy wave energy device and underwater substation pod, with additional funding going to the remaining consortium members for the steel fabrication, wave-monitoring equipment, wave resource prediction research, system monitoring and project management.

The work under the award is conditional on the signing of a consortium agreement by all expected members of the wave energy consortium, which is expected to occur over the next two months.