Aquamarine Power and the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) have together secured an €800,000 (£580,000) EU Horizon 2020 grant to improve the performance of Aquamarine Power’s Oyster wave energy converter.

The company has already built and operated two full-scale Oyster machines at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

The new Brussels-backed programme - called INNOWAVE - will enable three PhD researchers to explore ways to optimise the energy capture and economic performance of Oyster. As part of the three-year programme, each researcher will split their time between Aquamarine Power and NUIM’s Centre for Ocean Energy Research in County Kildare, west of Dublin.

The three PhD researchers will focus on two areas. One project will look at all aspects of Oyster design from an economic perspective - measured over the lifetime of a wave energy project. The other two will look at the development and implementation of control systems applicable to shore-based and offshore power take off systems.

This award follows the recent announcement of £2million funding from Wave Energy Scotland to Aquamarine Power, Bosch Rexroth and Carnegie Wave Energy to complete testing of their scale prototype and deliver the design and specification for a full-scale prototype WavePOD offshore power take off system.