CorPower Ocean has secured $35 million (€32 million) funding in an investment round set up to support the commercial roll out of its wave energy technology.
The Series B1 investment round was led by NordicNinja, the largest Japanese backed VC in Europe, SEB Greentech, the cleantech investment arm of the SEB bank, and EIT InnoEnergy in consortium with Santander Alternative Investments, Iberis Capital and Cisco Investments.
With the latest investment, CorPower Ocean has so far secured $103 million (€95 million) in funding from private and public investors and has demonstrated four generations of its wave energy technology.
Through the demonstrations, according to the company, it has addressed the two main challenges which have held back commercial adoption of wave energy – storm survivability and efficient power generation in normal ocean conditions.
The company currently has operations in Sweden, Norway, Portugal and Scotland, and is expanding to the US West Coast.
To remind, CorPower Ocean conducted ocean trials of its first commercial-scale wave energy device C4 offshore Portugal, verifying all key aspects of the system.
The device has since undergone upgrades ahead of redeployment Aguçadoura in northern Portugal for the new operational phase to demonstrate full power capacity including further advancement in control methods.
Wave farm projects are being developed by customers using CorPower Ocean’s technology along the Atlantic Arc, including sites in Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and Norway.
One project is being developed by Ireland’s state-owned energy supplier, ESB, off the coast of County Clare, following two decades of investigating a wide variety of technologies.
The pre-commercial phase of the EU-backed Saoirse Wave project, will involve CorPower Ocean wave energy converters as part of a CorPack cluster.
“Today’s announcement follows breakthrough results reported earlier this year from the firm’s ocean demonstration at the Aguçadoura site in northern Portugal, where the CorPower C4 became the first commercial scale wave device to successfully demonstrate the ability to survive the biggest Atlantic storms combined with a large power generation capacity with respect to the size and cost of equipment.
“This financing combined with the technology breakthrough recently reported delivers a firm message about wave energy’s readiness for widescale adoption and its key role in the global energy transition,” said Patrik Möller, CorPower Ocean Co-Founder and CEO.