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A wave farm with off the coast of west Wales could one day provide enough energy to power 500,000 homes using revolutionary new devices designed and made in Wales.

Swansea-based Marine Power Systems is hoping to begin testing a quarter scale prototype of its WaveSub device this autumn after completing it over the summer.

The device will be put into the water at Milford Haven for the first tests before being towed around to the wave power test site at Falmouth in Cornwall.

In a briefing report produced by Marine Power Systems the company claims that wave power could provide 10% of the world’s electricity by 2050.

Companies based in the UK could be well placed to take advantage of this future market as the UK has 35% of Europe’s wave energy potential.

Dr Gareth Stockman, co-founder and managing director of Marine Power Systems, said that once manufacturing was established in Wales the device could be exported and towed around the UK and Europe.

He said: “We’re trying to do what the Danes did for wind energy.”

The quarter scale prototype that will be launched this autumn will be 15 metres long and 10 metres wide, and weigh around 40 tonnes, but the full scale device could be between 80 and 100 metres long.

It would be able to generate between three and five megawatts of electricity. Dr Stockman said that in the future wave farms could contain up to 100 such devices and one such farm could power a city of 500,000 homes.

The full scale device is expected to be ready for installation by 2020.

Earlier devices

There have been a number of attempts to develop wave power devices over recent years, most of which have failed due to technical or financial difficulties.

Marine Power Systems was set up in 2008 and began by looking at other devices and working out why they had failed.

The company identified what it saw as the key challenges facing attempts to capture energy from the waves and attempted to overcome them.

WaveSub is designed to be able to operate in a broad band of sea states and harness the entire energy cycle of the wave.

It is also claimed to be easy to tow out, install and maintain. Devices could be towed back to harbour for maintenance while others that have been repaired are redeployed.

WaveSub also has a survivability mechanism, being able to lower itself out of harm’s way during stormy weather.

It would be deployed between five and 15 km offshore, in specially marked areas away from shipping lanes. There are many areas around the UK coasts which could be suitable for wave farm development, including Wales, Scotland and the south west of England.

Dr Stockman said wave power presented a huge opportunity. “We need to be bold and go for 10%,” he said, referring to the forecast potential of wave power to meet the world’s electricity needs.

The levelised cost of electricity from WaveSub is projected to be competitive with offshore wind once the technology is matured.

To date Marine Power Systems has raised more than £5m in financial support from a range of different organisations. This includes £700,000 in two separate investments by the Welsh Government, £2.4m from the European Regional Development Fund and £200,000 from Innovate UK, the UK Government’s innovation agency.