he Oceanus 1 technology was developed from the initial prototypes in order to make improvements in both performance and cost for manufacture of multiple units. The basis of the design was also driven by the chosen installation site at the European Marine Energy Centre’s environmental conditions and infrastructure.

Ideal sites for Oceanus deployments are those with 30 – 60 metre water depth 1-5 Km from the shore and with a wave resource greater than 10 kW/m. Deployment at sites further from land is possible with offshore generation, and may be desirable for consenting and infrastructure reasons, such as at Wave Hub.

 

The Oceanus 1 buoys have been manufactured locally in a boatyard in Stromness, and the pumps assembled locally from components manufactured around the UK. Our ability to manufacture locally simplifies the supply chain logistics and also provides employment to the host communities of a wave farm project. Materials for the Oceanus devices are mostly aluminium for the floats, high specification duplex stainless steel, and high modulus fibre ropes. The materials are selected to give a design life of at least 20 years.

An important feature of the Oceanus devices is the very low usage of material. A 1 MW array of devices consumes less that 60 tonnes of materials. This is due to the efficient seabed reacting design. For comparison, other WEC’s which are self reacting can weigh upwards of 1000 tonnes for a similar capacity.