Aquamarine Power, an Edinburgh-based developer of wave-powered electric generation technology, has secured £6 million ($8.91 million) from undisclosed investors to support construction of its 2.8 megawatts Oyster 2 wave power devise.

According to BusinessGreen, which first reported the news, current investors include Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Enterprise, Norwegian investors and Sigma Capital Group. All participated in this latest round.

To date Aquamarine has secured around £30m in funding.

SSE Renewables, the renewable energy unit of Scottish and Southern Energy, has partnered with Aquamarine to develop up to 400 megawatts of of wave and tidal-powered electricity in and around the Scottish coast.

The UK seeks to develop 1.2 gigawatts of marine energy off the coast of Scotland.

Photo: iStockphoto

The fallout from the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has politicians who previously supported oil prospecting off the United States’ coasts running for cover. Left-leaning pundits have been quick to ridicule the deafening silence coming from the conservatives who little more than a year ago turned the phrase “drill baby drill” into a political mantra.

However, centrists who were cautiously backing limited expansion of offshore drilling have also found themselves on shaky political ground. Florida Governor Charlie Crist, running for a senate seat as an independent, rapidly backed away from previous statements he made calling for increased offshore drilling “as long as it was done cleanly and safely.” In California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger publically announced that he no longer supports a compromise plan worked out between several environmental groups and Houston-based oil company Plains Exploration & Production that would have allowed the first new drilling off the California coast in 40 years.

Politics is a zero sum game, and while erstwhile supporters of drilling are busy backpedalling, supporters of alternative offshore energy technologies are watching their political stock rise. Politicians like San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a longtime proponent of wave energy and candidate for lieutenant governor of California, once seemed quixotic for their support of wave energy projects. Now they have an opportunity to paint themselves as prophetic. Last February Newson had trouble drumming up much mainstream enthusiasm when the city of San Francisco submitted a preliminary permit application to the federal government to develop a wave power system projected to generate between 10 to 30 megawatts of electricity and 100 fulltime jobs for San Franciscans. Now his environmental policies have pride of place in his campaign literature, and his run for statewide office has new momentum.

Private companies with their finger in the political pie are also jockeying to promote their investment in wave energy. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the utility that provides electricity to the northern two thirds of California, is a leading political donor in the state. The company is the top corporate contributor to statewide political causes, pumping $28.5 million into initiatives on California’s upcoming June ballot. PG&E has also been quick to tout its involvement with wave energy projects as evidence of its progressive politics. In 2007 the company inked a deal to buy two megawatts of wave energy derived power by 2012, making it the first utility in the United States to buy wave energy. It is also busy publicizing its recent permit application for a federal license to build a project with an estimated cost of more than $50 million off of the northern California coast. According to the company the project could be generating five megawatts of electricity by 2014.

Ironically, PG&E could face a different kind of political fight in its latest wave power endeavor. The area eyed by the company for its wave power project are prime Dungeness crab fishing waters, and fisherman are worried that the project may keep them out of catch zones and potentially damage their equipment. Local fishermen have already retained counsel to negotiate with the utility, and PG&E will have to tread lightly if it wants to project to build political capital and burnish its green credentials.

Of course, despite the new opportunity for supporters to portray wave energy as an alternative to offshore drilling, technological problems still trump political ones. No commercial wave farms exist in the United States, and Californian politicians and business leaders need look no further than Oregon to see large wave energy projects sidelined by economic and technological factors. In February Oregon Wave Energy Partners let its permit for a proposed 100 megawatt wave energy project off the Coos county coast lapse. Though the company filed to reinstate its permit in April, it is now focused on a project one twentieth the size off of Reedsport, Oregon.

The downsizing of the company’s ambitions underscores the real pitfalls of touting wave energy as an alternative to offshore drilling. Currently the productivity of wave farms does not rival the potential of offshore oil. Unless the political fallout from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill translates into a favorable regulatory climate for offshore alternatives, wave energy may remain a better political symbol than actual source of electricity.

Image: iStockphoto

Scotland: The Saudi Arabia of tidal and wave power!

SSE Renewables, the renewable energy unit of Scottish and Southern Energy, was awarded exclusive rights to develop up to 400 megawatts of wave and tidal-powered electricity in and around the Scottish coast as part of a massive tender administered by the Crown Estate.

The Crown Estate also awarded leases to Iberdrola of Spain, the U.K. unit of ScottishPower, and Germany’s E.ON.

SSE Renewable does not expect to begin constructing the projects until at least 2015, the company said in a statement released this morning.

Partnering on the SSE Renewables projects are Aquamarine Power, an Edinburgh-based developer of wave-powered electric generation technology and OpenHydro, a manufacturer and installer of tidal energy systems based in Dublin.

The four sites, all located in Scotland, are Costa Head (wave-powered project); Westray South (tidal stream-powered project); Brough Head (wave-powered project, to be developed in partnership with Aquamarine); and Cantick Head (tidal stream-powered project, to be developed in partnership with OpenHydro).

The Crown Estate and seeks to develop 1.2 gigawatts of marine energy off the coast of Scotland, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Image: iStockphoto

The PowerBuoy

In a surprising development, Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) has announced that CEO Mark Draper is leaving the company  less than a year after taking the top position from company founder Dr. George Taylor, citing personal reasons.  AIM-listed OPT, which has developed the PowerBuoys generator, a water buoy that capture waves to generate electricity, has appointed Chief Financial Officer Charles Dunleavy to replace him.

Mr. Dunleavy, 60, joined OPT in 1994 and has served as CFO since 2001. He has been a company director since 1990. The Company says it will appoint a new CFO.

Last November OPT received A$66.46 million ($60.65 million) grant from Australia’s Resources & Energy Ministry to finance construction of a 19 megawatts wave power project on the Indian Ocean.

OPT has also deployed 10 PowerBuoys generators off Spain’s Atlantic Coast as part of a 1.39-megawatt project it’s developing with Iberdrola and is working on a utility-scale initiative with Lockheed Martin off the Oregon coast. Back in Europe, OPT is developing Wave Hub, a 20-megawatt project, in Cornwall, England.

Ocean Power Technologies (NASDAQ:OPTT / LSE:OPT), the Pennington, N.J., -based developer of wave powered technology, has received A$66.46 million ($60.65 million) grant from Australia’s Resources & Energy Ministry to finance construction of a 19 megawatts wave power project on the Indian Ocean. Once live the offshore facility, which will use the company’s PowerBuoy technology, is  expected to be one of the world’s first utility-scale wave power project.

OPT’s Australian unit will split the funding with project partner Leighton Contractors. The two companies have formed a special purpose company to oversee project construction, which is expected to start in the second quarter of 2010. The wave power facility will be built over three phases, and is located off the city of Portland in the state of Victoria.

On the funding OPT founder and Chairman, Dr. George Taylor, who was born and raised in Australia, said:

Our Victoria, Australia project is expected to be one of the first utility-scale wave energy projects globally, and the latest example of OPT’s lead in turning wave energy technology into a commercial reality worldwide.

Besides OPT the energy ministry  awarded a total of  A$235 million to three other clean energy projects.

OPT’s energy ministry grant will only finance a portion of the project. The company plans to secure outside financing to complete the project.

Besides Australia, OPT is developing projects in Hawaii, Spain and the Pacific Northwest.