Developers are increasingly moving to the offshore environment for large scale power production. Over 1,100 megawatts (MW) of new offshore wind turbines were installed in 2012, representing an investment of approximately €4.6 billion – a 30% increase over 2011 (European Wind Energy Association). The UK’s Carbon Trust reports that “with sufficient focus on innovation the costs of (wave) energy can be competitive with other renewable technologies by the mid-2020s and provide 15 to 20% of the UK’s energy needs.” In a recent report to Congress, the US DOE estimates 1,170 terawatt hours annually could be supplied by wave energy – enough electricity for about 50 million US homes.                          

The largest market opportunity is utility scale power generation; however, it has the highest barriers to entry, including the low cost of traditional power and complex regulatory regimes. While cognizant of this sizeable market in the long-term, our near-term focus is on gaining traction in early adopter markets that assign  a high value to renewable power as a replacement for high cost fossil fuels, such as the US Navy/DOD, Oil/Gas, and Island Grids.

Ocean energy is part of an overall combinatorial approach to energy security. The opportunity to partner with the burgeoning offshore wind projects. AZURA can value add to these developments providing added and consistent output within an established infrastructure framework reducing the cost per kWh substantially by amortising overall cost per capacity.