Gifts from God to Help Humanity Clean up its Mess
Two More Tidal Stream and Wave Energy Pioneers - Inyanga and Mocean Energy
In episode 1, I introduced what I discovered in my research into tidal stream and wave energy. I’m a neophyte, not an expert, by any stretch, but I was curious to understand the promise of these renewable energy systems and wanted to highlight them. Nothing about them ever surfaces in the mainstream press. Instead, all we hear, in the UK at least, is the ever-rising costs of energy, our over-reliance on fossil fuel imports, and the closing down of North Sea assets.
There seems to be a myopic battle between climate change and renewable energy advocates, and pushback from populist politicians, who point out that with just a two-week store of gas, the entire grid could collapse if we relied solely on wind or solar power when it’s calm and cloudy. It seems evident that tidal stream energy could fill this gap, as it is entirely predictable. And, given the UK’s dramatic coastline and the confluence of the North Sea and English Channel, while less predictable, wave energy would boost the renewable energy portfolio. Provided there is sufficient far-sighted investment support from the Government.
The UK Marine Energy Council (MEC)¹ cited research that wave energy could contribute up to 20% of the UK’s entire demand for electricity. The IPCC estimated that wave energy could power half a billion homes globally, a significant contribution not to be sneezed at.
Mixed signals from the UK Government
The University of Edinburgh, supported by Wave Energy Scotland (WES), published a report on the economic impact of wave and tidal energy. The report claimed that from 2030 to 2050, the net financial benefit to the UK would be in the order of £100BN, more than twice the value of the kingdom’s car industry.²
The UK Government published its ‘Clean Energy Industries Sector Plan’³ in June 2025, and bizarrely, it made absolutely no mention of tidal stream or wave energy. Instead, it fixated on wind energy, offshore and onshore. Solar got a push, as did nuclear, fission, fusion, and hydrogen, but nothing on tidal or wave energy. It seems that the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, is myopically focused on windmills, to the detriment of the countryside, loss of farmland, and its inhabitants.
What a missed opportunity! It was a missed opportunity to support tidal and wave energy, to explain the value of a wider portfolio of energy sources, making the UK resilient to oil and gas price fluctuations, and to sell the advantages of energy independence to the British public. The government’s alleged growth priority is missing this emergent opportunity identified by WES to generate £100bn, and put the UK at the forefront of these promising energy source innovations.
Thank God the offshore renewable energy sector has MEC to champion tidal and wave energy. It also has representatives from the industry, notably Anders Jansson, head of business development at CorPower (see episode 1), and Richard Parkinson, MD, the brains behind Inyanga Marine Energy Group, our following exemplar of tidal stream energy.
On a more positive note, on June 18 2025, the UK Government launched the Marine Energy Taskforce (MET), sponsored by The Crown Estate. The twelve-month initiative will focus on four priorities to support the marine energy sector: site development, financing, innovation and supply chain growth.
The Taskforce will report to the Energy Minister, Michael Shanks, who is also responsible for Great British Energy. Several representatives from offshore energy businesses are included:
Andrew Scott, CEO of Orbital Marine Power, which manufactures tidal stream turbines
Tom Hutchinson, Director of Products and Services, Proteus Marine Renewables, another tidal stream turbine manufacturer,
Simon Forest, CEO of Nova Innovation, a third tidal stream turbine company,
and once again, Anders Jansson, living up to his business development role and, as mentioned, a member of MEC, from CorPower.
It is also pleasing to see representatives from The Crown Estate, Mentor Mon Morlais, CEO, Andy Bilcliff, the Welsh Government, Great British Energy, and MEC. It is encouraging to see such a focused group all pointing their arrows at the same target. Let’s hope that myopic Ed (Wind) Milliband gets the message.
Inyanga Marine Energy and its HydroWing for Tidal Power
Background
Inyanga Marine Energy was founded in 2017 by Richard Parkinson. He wanted to develop and commercialise a reliable, lower-cost tidal stream energy converter. Based in Falmouth, Cornwall, England, his idea was the development of the HydroWing. A Class 1 Master Mariner, Parkinson’s offshore career started in 1984, working on BP oil tankers and Anchor Handling Tug Supply boats operating heavy lift construction barges.
In 2004, he acquired Mojo, a marina contracting company that focused on offshore renewable energy installations for tidal and wave projects.
He sold Mojo in 2015 and used the proceeds to found Inyanga. He continued to provide offshore management services while developing the HydroWing concept.
Simplification improving reliability and lowering costs
Back in 2004, a common challenge for tidal stream projects was the enormous complexity and cost of manufacturing, installation, and subsequent maintenance. This made them very expensive compared with more established alternative energy sources. The complexity and costs associated with offerings from early pioneers deterred investors from considering the tidal stream energy market. The net present value of the generated electrical energy couldn’t compete with other renewables such as solar or wind.
To overcome this challenge, Parkinson realised that to succeed, the HydroWing would need to be modular in design. This makes transporting components to the site easy, where they can be assembled with readily available engineering support from local engineers. He took a whole systems approach to address the initial installation and longer-term maintenance needs. Everything was designed for simplicity, including the replacement or addition of new turbines with minimal disruption. The Tocardo*T3 turbines can be delivered in a standard container, minimising transportation costs. (*The Dutch turbine company, Tocardo, was jointly acquired by QED Naval and HydroWing as a collaborative venture in early 2020). As the turbines are bi-directional, they automatically switch direction in synch with the tides, optimising power generation.
Figure 1 provides a composite picture of the HydroWing Tidal Energy Converter (TEC), sourced from the company’s website. The image on the left shows the modularity, showing a turbine being lowered onto the base support infrastructure on the seabed. The HydroWing Quad Barge (top-right) provides a convenient method of swapping turbines in as little as twenty minutes. This compares extremely favourably with the traditional approach of hiring a ship from Norway at around £500,000-£ 1,000,000, and up to two days to change a part such as a turbine. The switch-over costs using the Quad Barge are around £20,000 to £ 25,000. (Source: Inyanga Investor Presentation May 2024).⁴
Such financial savings have significantly boosted Inyanga’s TEC solution. The image at the bottom right shows the entire HydroWing assembly on the sea floor.
The HydroWing is entirely underwater, so there is no unsightly protrusion. Tests have also confirmed that marine life is safe from accidental collision.
Inyanga’s successes in Asia and Wales
Inyanga has several projects, two in Indonesia, one in the Philippines, and the largest in Morlais, Wales.
First of a kind Tidal Energy project for Indonesia
In September 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Indonesia Power, a state-owned company and HydroWing to collaborate on developing tidal stream energy to reduce reliance on damaging fossil fuels across the Indonesian archipelago.
10MW tidal energy project in East Nusa Tenggara
Shortly after the above MoU, PLN, the state-owned national power company and national grid owner, made a binding agreement with Inyanga to accelerate tidal energy production in Indonesia. Following a detailed assessment, the site in East Nusa Tenggara was selected.
Inyanga awarded a 10MW tidal energy project at Morlais, off Anglesey, Wales
In 2014, the Crown Estate designated a 35 km² area of seabed near Holy Island as a demonstration zone for tidal energy. Menter Môn Morlais, a not-for-profit social enterprise that had secured the lease, would run the project funded by an £8 million grant from the Welsh Government.
After an initial consultation with the local community, consent was granted in December 2021. The second part of the project was to build the infrastructure so that tidal energy technology developers could install their TEC devices. Inyanga will deliver a 20MW HydroWing array consisting of twenty HydroWing units using the Tocardo T3 turbines between 2026 and 2028. Inyanga Marine Energy Group opened a new office in Wales to support the project.
Inyanga will contract out specific components and, on the third of June 2025, announced the winning subcontractors:⁵
PPI Engineering to design and manufacture the generator and housing.
RMSpumptools to develop a bespoke KV Wet-Mate Connector System for a reliable connection.
Involution Technologies to design and make the central shaft unit, incorporating the 3:1 gearbox.
Iconsys to make the carbon fibre blades.
Prysmian for the export cables.
July 15th 2025 Update — Inyanga secures a further £3.7 million investment for tidal stream demonstrator at Morlais Mais
In the Offshore Energy newsletter of 16th July 2025, Inyanga Marine Energy Group secured a further investment of £3.7 million from a consortium of investors, including previous investor hte British Business Bank via the FSE Group, Welsh Ministers through Local Partnerships, the FSE Investor Network and other business angels. This further demonstrates the confidence in Inyanga’s project management and HydroWing technology.- and gives the company the means to exhibit its latest developments in the demonstrator.
Inyanga to build Asia’s first tidal energy plant in Capul, Philippines
Capul in the San Bernardino Strait has powerful tidal currents with two seas at either end of the Strait. The 1MW project is expected to be fully deployed in 2025. Capul, an off-grid island, currently relies on a 750kW diesel power plant, which the HydroWing will replace. An energy storage facility is included, allowing for a 24/7 power supply. Currently, Capul only has electricity for eight to sixteen hours a day.
Once established, the partnership with Energies PH will expand to other off-grid islands.
Simplicity and collaboration are the hallmarks of Inyanga’s success
These projects illustrate the power of simplicity and collaboration.
A whole-systems view of the challenge has enabled Inyanga to simplify the Hydrowing’s end-to-end design, installation, and maintenance. This allows the company to eliminate unnecessary costs and continually enhance the economic viability of its solution. A willingness to collaborate with energy partners and component suppliers provides the platform for successful delivery.
Now let’s turn to Wave Energy and Mocean Energy for an emerging success story.
Mocean Energy — on the cusp of commercialisation
Mocean Energy was founded in 2015 by Cameron McNatt (MD) and Chris Retzler to develop and commercialise a WEC based on the hinged-raft concept, where two hulls ride the waves, generating between 3 and 8 times the energy compared with earlier models of a similar size.
This was Metzler’s second go at developing a robust WEC, having previously founded and run Pelamis Wave Power, which went into administration in November 2014. Allied to the practical insights gained from the Pelamis venture, McNatt brought highly complementary skills to Mocean, having earned a Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh, a Master’s from Oregon State University and a degree from Yale University in electrical engineering.
When they teamed up, they planned to use software and numerical optimisation to design WECs with a focus on geometry, to determine the optimum WEC shape for the highest power output. This was an innovative approach, and based on subsequent experiments and tests, led to novel WEC shapes, which they would develop and continually improve.
Starting small, aiming big
The initial focus has been on developing wave energy to power offshore equipment control systems for the oil and gas industries and remotely operated underwater vehicles. Currently, most offshore sites rely on polluting diesel generators; however, as greater attention shifts to clean energy sources, local WECs, such as Mocean’s Blue Star model, provide an efficient and clean alternative.
But Mocean also has its eyes set on the more ambitious utility-scale wave energy opportunity, supplying electricity to the national grid. This is their Blue Horizon WEC farm, which is currently under development and will be served by larger WECs. Figure 2 illustrates both models, Blue Star for remote clean energy and Blue Horizon for national grids.
The underlying principle in both models is identical. The hinged raft has two floating hulls joined at the centre by a hinge, which sits on top of the wave crest. The excitation causes kinetic energy to be generated and is extracted by a power takeoff mechanism within the hinge. Previous generations of hinged-raft WECs, including the Pelamis WEC, looked like boxes or barrels strung together and were far less efficient. The Mocean WEC has massively improved hydrodynamics, generating more power.
Wave Energy Scotland played a vital role as the initial catalyst for Mocean Energy
Wave Energy Scotland was set up in 2015 by Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing, with an initial budget of £14.3 million. Its goal is to support the R&D of an indigenous wave energy industry in Scotland, based on the country’s enormous potential and geological advantages. Some of its earliest employees came from the collapsed Pelamis Wave Power company, ensuring their technical insights and know-how were retained.
The organisation has so far funded £50 million in contracts, benefitting 300 companies through 132 contracts. The benefits have extended beyond Scotland and the UK, involving 18 countries. The aim is to enable the wave energy industry to thrive and operate independently, as emerging wave technologies reach the commercialisation stage.
The organisation’s pre-commercial procurement model (PCP) awards funding to firms, enabling them to develop the most promising wave technologies and attract private investment once prototypes are designed and proven.
Mocean Energy appointed lead contractor for Wave Energy Scotland’s Novel Wave Energy Converter Project
Mocean Energy, as the lead contractor in the Novel Wave Energy Converter Project, is one of the companies that has received such funding. Since 2017, it has completed Stage 3 of the PCP, encompassing detailed design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance, testing, and a final decommissioning exercise of its BlueX prototype.
This was a highly collaborative venture involving leading researchers at the University of Edinburgh and nine specialist companies, each contributing to various tasks including engineering, control systems, and other key elements of the BlueX WEC prototype. BlueX will become Blue Star as a standalone WEC for remote uses or as a WEC within a Blue Horizon wave farm connected to the grid.
The following paragraphs provide an overview of the three stages of the Novel Wave Energy Converter Project financed by WES. For the technically-minded, see the Wave Energy Scotland reports.⁶
Stage 1 — Develop modelling software, identify best solution
The first stage of the project involved developing the modelling software to predict the impacts of changes to the geometry of a WEC in different wave conditions. Scale models of potential solutions were developed and assessed to see which design held the most promise. During Stage 1, WES evaluated several WECs based on traditional symmetrical hinge designs. Mocean Energy’s non-symmetrical design was found to increase energy output significantly. Its asymmetry is evident in the shorter raft at the back and the longer one at the front, as well as in their slightly different shapes. These are linked by the hinge, which contains the power take-off mechanism converting kinetic energy into electricity. A scoop-like structure at each end, which is submerged beneath the waves, and again, they are different sizes and three times wider than the hulls (see bottom left image in Figure 2). According to the WES Public Report 2017, the asymmetrical advantage of the submerged nose and tail is that they act like flaps, experiencing both surge and heave forces, boosting the electrical power output, unlike previous hinged-raft designs that only experience the heave force.
Stage 2 — Develop a viable, fully functioning WEC geometry, designed to produce electrical energy
The Public Report from WES in May 2019 outlined the purpose of stage 2, primarily to develop a viable high-performance WEC. The numerical modelling software in Stage 1 provided a good indication of the potential of the Mocean Energy WEC design; however, it did not accurately match the physical model tests, as it didn’t account for non-linear effects such as sideways turbulence and overtopping. Therefore, in Stage 2, a more sophisticated model was developed, offering greater accuracy and providing further insights into the geometric design effects, as well as cost and benefit projections.
The physical scale-model tests provided encouraging signs that a full-scale prototype would perform well even in extremely stormy conditions. The submerged nose would slice through high waves, allowing overtopping and preventing a disastrous belly flop that could destroy the WEC or its instrumentation.
Stage 3 — Manufacture of 38-tonne prototype tested in real, high-wave sea conditions at Scapa Flow over 5 months
Stage 3 provided a complete beginning-to-end test from production of the BlueX (later to become Blue Star), to the five-month testing at the European Marine Energy Centre’s test site in Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. Everything from transporting the WEC, towing it out to sea, and continuous monitoring over five months, including maintenance, fixing issues as they arose, and replacing elements, was completed successfully. Even the impact on the marine environment was monitored, including underwater noise and its effects on fish. Researchers at the University of Plymouth found that after two months, small fish aggregated around the moorings, providing cover from predators. Even Covid failed to spoil the testing.
From an energy and cost performance perspective, modelling a future farm of 100 WECs would deliver a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of £117/MWh once the deployment reaches 1 GW, well below Wave Energy Scotland’s target of £150/MWh, and not far off the Hinkley C nuclear power station agreed contract cost of £92.5/MWh.⁷ On the other hand, wind and solar are much cheaper, which is due to their relative maturity compared with wave energy, at £57/MWh.⁸ However, it is reasonable to expect parity by 2030 as the technologies mature.
Overall, the project has provided a vast library of insights and learnings that Mocean Energy captured that will feed future developments. On the back of this successful WES-sponsored project, Mocean Energy teamed up with undersea battery storage firm Verlume of Aberdeen and several other specialists to embark on the Renewables for Subsea Project, launched in 2020.
A collaborative venture — The Renewables for Subsea Power project — proves commercial viability
The initial phase of the Renewables for Subsea Power project, sponsored by £ 2 million in funding from the Net Zero Technology Centre, brought together a consortium of specialists to develop a comprehensive subsea renewable energy and storage system to power subsea equipment for the oil and gas industry. There is also the potential to use this solution in offshore fish farms for undersea inspection, for example.
Mocean Energy’s Blue Star WEC, Verlume’s Halo underwater battery provided the energy and storage parts of the solution, and Baker Hughes’ subsea controls equipment, and an underwater vehicle provided by Transmark Subsea. EMEC supplied measurement instrumentation to measure the direction and speed of currents throughout the project. WES provided £160,000 for the integration of the umbilical link into the WEC.
The initial proof-of-concept deployment in 2023 lasted four months, situated at EMEC’s Scapa Flow test site five kilometres off the east coast of Orkney. The aim was to demonstrate that continuous green energy could be supplied as needed for subsea wellheads, without relying on costly subsea umbilical cables.
This project ran for a further year and attracted investment from Shell, demonstrating the interest and commercial viability in the oil and gas sector.
£3million funding from EuropeWave paves the way for a UK wave array
In September 2023, Mocean Energy secured £3.2 million of funding as part of Phase 3 EuropeWave, an EU-funded project. This will be for the next generation of a 250 kW wave machine with a view ultimately to developing a wave array in UK waters. The large-scale wave energy device will be named Blue Horizon 250. It will be manufactured in Scotland and become part of a small wave farm delivering 1–2 MW of electricity by 2030. The project will be managed in collaboration with WES, the Basque Energy Agency and Ocean Energy Europe.
Blue Horizon 250 builds on the Blue X prototype and is expected to entail 80% local supply chain content for Scotland. Mocean Energy’s preferred manufacturing partner, Texo Engineering and Fabrication, will complete the fabrication, assembly and loadout (safe transfer of the WEC from the factory to its final destination).
Turning the corner on commercialisation, but it’s time for Ed Miliband to get behind it.
Since 2020, Mocean Energy has raised nearly £8 million from Wave Energy Scotland, Innovate UK, EU grants and equity investors, including Scottish Enterprise, Equity Gap, the University of Edinburgh, Norwegian impact investor Katapult Ocean, and a Japanese shipping conglomerate, MOL.
It is now very close to full-scale commercialisation. However, as I stated in the paragraph — mixed signals from the UK government, there is no mention of either wave or tidal stream energies in their Clean Energy Industries Sector Plan.
Mocean Energy’s Commercial Director, Ian Crossland concurs with me when quoted in The Scotsman newspaper article on 15th April 2025 stating that: ‘’there is a glaring omission in the government’s 65-page consultation document: ‘wave’, ‘ocean’ and ’tidal’ do not receive a single mention between them.’⁹
Unless Ed (Wind) Milliband takes the blinkers off, what should be a massive growth industry in the UK as a market leader will be a grievous and grossly negligent missed opportunity. Fingers crossed!
