The story
The Oyster concept originated from studies conducted in 2003 by the wave power research team at Queen's University Belfast, led by Professor Trevor Whittaker. The studies were co-funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Allan Thomson, who had previously founded and led the UK's first commercial wave energy company, Wavegen.
In 2005, Thomson founded Aquamarine Power to progress the commercialisation of the Oyster device. In 2007, Scottish & Southern Energy subsidiary Renewable Technology Ventures Limited invested in Aquamarine with a further investment in 2010. In February 2009, Aquamarine Power and Queen's University signed an agreement to extend their R&D partnership to 2014.
In February 2009, Aquamarine Power signed an agreement with renewable energy company Airtricity, a subsidiary of Scottish & Southern Energy, to develop marine energy sites using the Oyster system.
In November 2009, the first full-scale, 315 kW, Oyster demonstrator began producing power when it was launched at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Billia Croo wave test site off the west coast of Mainland Orkney.
The second generation Oyster 2 – also called Oyster 800 (based on 800 kW rated power) – was tested at EMEC between 2012 and 2015. The plan was to install three devices (2.4 MW total installed capacity) at Billia Croo, but only one was installed. The project was provisionally dubbed the Orkney Wave Power Station.
By March 2015, the company had concluded it's Oyster 800 test programme, with the device being mothballed. The company was focusing on developing the WavePOD power take off subsystem, in collaboration with Carnegie Wave Energy and Bosch Rexroth. This was planned to be usable across different wave energy devices, to reduce costs. Aquamarine Power had significantly downsized the previous year, to just 18 employees from around 50 previously.
Administration
On 28 October 2015, BBC News reported that Aquamarine Power had called in administrators. No buyer was found and less than a month later, on 20 November, the company ceased to trade with the loss of fourteen jobs.
Lewis Wave Energy Farm
In March 2012, Aquamarine announced plans to install 40–50 Oyster devices on the seabed off the Western Isles in Scotland. The project was intended to be able to supply electricity to more than 38,000 homes. The site was to be off the coast of Lag na Greine, near Fivepenny Borve (Scottish Gaelic: Còig Peighinnean Bhuirgh), on the exposed north-west coast of the Isle of Lewis.
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At the All Energy conference in May 2013, government minister Fergus Ewing announced the 40 MW scheme had been granted full consents, making it the largest permitted wave project. Construction was anticipated to start "in the next few years", although this was subject to upgrades to the electricity grid: a new high-voltage inter-connector cable was required to transmit green electricity from Lewis to the mainland of Scotland. In 2013, SSE announced they would not be able to build the inter-connector before 2017, potentially putting renewable energy projects at risk.
Neptune tidal stream turbine
Between 2007 and 2009, Aquamarine also worked on the development of a tidal stream turbine, called "Neptune". This was to have two three-bladed horizontal turbines mounted either side of a monopile foundation, similar to the MCT SeaGen turbine. It was initially expected to be tested at EMEC in 2011.
In January 2009, Aquamarine signed a £2m order with ABB for the electrical systems for two turbines, with a combined rated capacity of 2.4 MW.
However, by April 2009, Aquamarine announced that they were ceasing development of the tidal turbine, to focus on their Oyster wave energy device.
From Wikipedia’s article on Aquamarine Power, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4