Gifts from God to Help Humanity Clean up Its Mess 

24.06.25 02:19 PM - Comment(s) - By Jeremy Cox

Tidal Stream, Wave Energy + Creative Imagination

Episode 1 - the big picture and two standout  Swedish pioneers



In the early part of this century, there was excitement about harnessing the energy from the sea. We are all familiar with solar power and offshore and on-land wind energy. But unless you trawl through industry reports on other forms of offshore renewable energy (ORE), you can be forgiven for not even thinking about the vast potential of Wave and Tidal Stream energy.

Yet, we’ve all experienced crashing waves or been on ferry crossings tossed about by heavy seas. Intuitively, we sense the enormous, raw, untapped power. However, we seldom hear about the creative geniuses behind emerging technologies for harnessing this inexhaustible tidal stream and wave energy power.

I remember the early excitement about harnessing tidal energy over a decade ago. What a brilliant idea, I thought. 

The UK, being an island, is surrounded by the tidal waters of the Atlantic, North Sea, and English Channel. Unlike wind or solar-based energy systems, tides are predictable. The Severn Estuary, dividing Wales from England, has the second largest tidal range in the World, averaging 15m (50ft) between low and high tides twice a day.[1]
A YouTube video on Corpower Ocean re-sparked my interest in this seemingly forgotten energy source. So, as part of my umbrella research into the regenerative business, I decided to investigate further.

Forget about space travel to Mars. Who but the insane would want to go there? Instead, embrace our oceans, seas, and rivers. Far more exciting, and let’s face it, humanity and all life depend on them. 

True gifts from God, in three episodes

I’ll share what I have discovered about tidal stream and wave energy, with ingenious examples across three ‘episodes’. 
In Episode 1, we’ll take a look at two Swedish pioneering companies making deep inroads into these untapped ORE resources in two ingenious ways: 
  • CorPower Ocean from Sweden, a wave energy innovator, inspired by the heart’s pump mechanism, converting wave energy into electricity, at increasing scale.

  •  Minesto - a tidal stream energy pioneer, inspired by the aerodynamics of kite-flying.

In Episode 2, we’ll examine the novel approaches of four more from the UK:

  • Inyanga Marine Energy Group - a tidal stream energy pioneer from Cornwall in England.
  • Mocean Energy is a Scottish wave energy pioneer.
  • SAE Renewables - a tidal stream energy and battery storage company headquartered in England.
  • NOVA Innovation is another Scottish pioneer in tidal stream energy.

And in Episode 3, four more:
  • Seaturns, a French wave energy pioneer.
  • Spiralis Energy Ltd, a tidal and river energy company based in England.
  • Tidal Technologies Limited - an English tidal stream energy innovator.
  • ZOEX Energy,  the UK’s only female-founded wave energy company in Scotland.

There are other pioneering tidal and wave energy innovators, but these are the ones that first caught my eye during my meandering journey of discovery.

It will become clear that each company is on a different, but potentially complementary path to harnessing tidal stream or wave energy. Unlike the automobile industry, the emerging marine energy sector is extraordinarily diverse. 

Whatever path they have chosen, they will need support from governments, forward-thinking investors, and collaborative partners to become mainstream electricity providers. The signs are that a new age of ‘ocean energy’ will be with us within a decade, negating the need for fossil fuels as an energy source.

But set against that imperative are the countervailing forces of Net Zero scepticism, fuelled by populist political voices and amplified by media focused on today’s cost-of-living crisis, and short-term risk aversion. Regarding the latter, there is a natural temptation to play it safe and restrict investment to more mature and proven technologies like wind and solar. This would be a massive mistake. It potentially starves these promising early-stage technologies that offer predictable energy at ever-diminishing costs to citizens and industries of the investment they need. That would be a tragic missed opportunity.

Fortunately, believers in tidal and wave energy are persistent and gaining ground internationally, even if they are hidden from mainstream view.

The Big Picture

In May 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published a significant report: Net Zero Emissions by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.[2]
It aimed to describe a feasible roadmap for the global energy sector to play its part in limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C, which aligns with the goal of the Paris Agreement by 2050. Roughly 70% of greenhouse gas emissions are generated by the energy sector, of which nearly 30% comes from electricity generation, which is currently heavily reliant on fossil fuels (see the image on the left, Figure 1).

Figure 1: GHG by sector. and World Gross Electricity Production by source

The right-hand image shows the global contribution of electricity from energy sources. Wind currently provides the lion’s share of ORE at 5.3%, with solar at 2.6%. Solar, like wind, is growing rapidly. According to the Energy Institute, both technologies have matured, achieving sufficient scale, making them cost-competitive with coal and gas-fired power plants.[3]


By contrast, wave and tidal stream contribute just 0.5%, as indicated by the blue arrow in the image. Supporting technologies are still in the early lifecycle stage, but in its International Vision for Ocean Energy, OES (Ocean Energy Systems[4] ),predicts that both wave and tidal stream will become cost-competitive in the next decade, and grow rapidly as the technology advances. This will generate 680,000 jobs and $340 billion in gross value added (GVA), preventing over 500 million tonnes of carbon emissions. 


International collaboration and upgraded national grids are required


International collaboration and agreed-upon regulations will be necessary to meet these growth estimates. First, concerns about the impact on ocean ecosystems and ship navigation must be addressed. If these are to become valuable contributors to a nation’s renewable energy mix, governments must invest in upgrading their grid infrastructure to accommodate them. 

For example, in 2024, the UK spent over £1 billion on wind farm owners to halt production during high winds, as the National Grid couldn’t absorb the energy. This ludicrous situation keeps the UK’s household energy costs higher than they should be. [5] In its defence, the UK Government is trying to unlock the grid by streamlining planning and axing zombie projects that prevent other, more promising renewable energy providers from connecting to the National Grid. 

Tidal Stream and Wave Energy Basics

Tidal Stream Energy

Tidal Stream Energy converts the kinetic energy from tidal currents into electricity. The moon’s and the sun’s gravitational pull generate our tides, making them predictable energy sources once we learn how to harness them. 

Underwater turbines are the more common devices for capturing and converting energy. They operate like wind turbines but are much smaller in size and capacity. They can be linked to form arrays to create tidal stream energy farms, fixed on the seabed, or with floating foundations. 

The Economic Review of Tidal Stream Energy in Scotland report by Enterprise Scotland (January 2025) estimated that Scotland’s marine area contains 25% of Europe’s tidal energy resource, with around 32 TWh per year potentially exploitable. Currently, there are 12.6 MW of operational tidal stream turbines globally, of which 9.8 MW are in Scotland. According to a study by Gang Li and Weidong Zhu of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, USA[6], the harvestable global potential is 1200 TWh annually. 

However, the technology is less mature and currently more expensive per kilowatt hour than wind and solar. As pioneering companies develop next-generation turbines, the cost gap will likely close. 

Wave Energy
Ocean waves caused by the wind generate wave energy. Wave energy has an energy density over five times that of wind energy. This means it has significant potential as a clean energy resource that may contribute even more energy than wind. Wave energy converters (WECs) capture the energy and convert wave motion into electricity. The challenge has been developing a WEC that can withstand hostile sea conditions without enormous expense. As a result, wave energy is less mature than tidal stream, but is catching up and growing in importance. 

Given the early stage of wave energy evolution, and the potentially hostile environments technologies have to cope with, it is unsurprising that innovators have adopted different approaches to their proposed solutions. These include: 

  • Attenuators that look like floating cylinders linked together to form wing-like structures, parallel to the wave direction, that flex and convert the surge, sway and heave motion of the waves to generate energy.
  • Bulge Wave Technology uses a rubber tube filled with water tethered to the ocean floor and directed towards the waves. Water from the waves enters the rear of the sausage-like tube, creating a pressure bulge that powers a turbine at the front end to generate power and then pumps the water back into the sea, ready for the next wave.
  • Point Absorbers that bob on the water’s surface, absorbing energy from all directions and converting it into electricity.
  • Oscillating Wave Surge Converters. These devices sit on the seafloor in shallow water, with arms that oscillate back and forth, and pump water at high pressure to an onshore hydroelectric conversion plant to generate electricity.
  • Oscillating Water Columns, wave energy devices using wave motion to compress and decompress air in a chamber, forcing air through a turbine to generate electricity,
  • Overtopping Devices, guiding waves into reservoirs at high tide, and then releasing the water at low tide to generate kinetic energy,
  • Rotating Mass Wave Energy Converters ride on the surface and power a rotating alternator as the devices sway and roll in the waves, capturing the energy. 
  • Submerged Pressure Differential Devices are installed on the seabed. They consist of a hinged flap that moves back and forth, driving a piston to generate electricity.

As we can see, pioneering wave innovators adopt a variety of energy capture and conversion strategies. Wave Energy is a massive test of ingenuity and imagination, harnessing ocean power. However, before discussing the first two innovators focused on tidal stream or wave energy, the central role of a world-leading testing organisation deserves recognition.

EMEC - the vital role of an innovation catalyst


The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), founded in 2003, is the world’s leading ocean energy tester. It acts as a catalyst, helping wave and tidal stream innovators test and prove their technology and assess performance. It operates two test sites in the Orkneys: 
1. The Fall of Warness, a grid-connected test site west of the island of Eday, with high velocity marine currents (7.8 knots at spring tides).
2. The Billia Croo wave test site in the North Atlantic off Orkney, an area recognised as having among the highest potential wave energy in Europe. Waves can reach up to 18 metres, almost 60 feet high.   

Five 11kV subsea cables are connected to the EMEC substation, which feeds the national grid with the electricity generated by the WECs being tested. EMEC is also exploring integrating different clean energy systems, including hydrogen and fuel cells, and the storage and refuelling of e-fuels (synthetic fuels produced from electricity and CO2). EMEC, therefore, plays a pivotal role in the growing tidal stream and wave energy ecosystems.

CorPower Ocean

Background and inspiration

CorPower Ocean, which develops wave energy converters, was founded in 2009 by Patrick Möller, CEO and technology entrepreneur and Dr Stig Lundbäck, a Stockholm cardiologist.

Practical biomimicry

Lundbäck delved deeply into how the heart works and discovered the principles behind its ‘dynamic adaptive piston pump’ (DAPP) functionality. He is not an engineer, but he has an engineer’s mind. He has turned his discovery into practical and worthwhile uses. He invented several products, such as the Surf Cleaner to remove oil from contaminated water from industrial liquid waste and harbour water. His insights into how the heart uses stored hydraulic pressure, not muscle, for the return stroke of a heartbeat led to the invention by Dr Hals Todalshaug at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) of CorPower’s ‘WaveSpring’ technology. Co-developed with CorPower, this control mechanism pulls the buoy downwards after a wave has made it rise.

From Scepticism to ‘Clean Energy-as-a-Service’
When Möller first met Lundbäck in 2008 at an InnoEnergy event showcasing new technologies at the Royal Institute of Technology, he was sceptical about the doctor’s ideas. However, as Lundbäck explained the science, he saw the opportunity to build a wave energy system that could survive ferocious sea conditions and generate substantial power at a relatively lower cost and size. After several years developing the technology for CorPower and proving its efficacy, Möller describes his business model as Clean Energy-as-a-Service. The value proposition is to lower the cost of clean energy through ocean power, complementing intermittent solar and wind energy sources. 
Brief History
In 2012, CorPower joined InnoEnergy’s accelerator program. Between 2012 and 2025, the company completed five developmental proving stages. Since then, it has attracted investment from Almi GreenTech, a government-run Swedish green technology fund, and Midrib, an infrastructure company and VC. 

In 2014, Jørgen Hals Todalshaug invented the Wavespring technology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), which amplifies wave motion to maximise power capture. The company claims this technology generates five times as much electricity per tonne as the previous wave-tech generation. The WaveSwing technology amplifies a wave’s impact by up to three times, so a 1 metre wave generates the energy of a 3 metre wave.

The following timeline outlines the progress made over five developmental stages from 2012 to 2025. Feedback from each stage provides vital lessons, so the technology evolves progressively until it is commercially viable in the final stage.

How the CorPower C5 WEC and CorPack work
Watch this video to see how they work.
Figure 4 provides a composite picture of the latest C5 WEC.
It also shows the scale of each buoy and a view of the internal workings. 

Figure 4. Different views of CorPower WECs - sourced from CorPower Press pack

The central image illustrates the entire WEC, anchored to the seabed.
The image at the top right shows how C5 WECs can be linked in an array to create a wave energy farm. This can also complement existing wind farms and provide guaranteed energy when there is no wind.
CorPower delivers its technology in CorPack Wave clusters with 10- 30 MW capacity. The composite materials used for the buoys enable them to be easily manufactured on site. The buoys are towed out to sea, anchored to the seabed, and connected to the grid via undersea cabling.

Three major projects in partnership with utilities and marine engineers confirm the viability of CorPower technology:
in Portugal, Ireland and the Orkneys off Northern Scotland.

HiWave-5

The HiWave-5 project off the coast of Aguçadora in Portugal was designed to demonstrate a full-scale Wave Energy Conversion System in partnership with Portuguese electricity company EDP, Simply Blue Group, a renewable energy company and ENEL Green Power.  Figure 3 timeline outlines the five stages since this project started in 2012, reaching its maturity in 2025.
Saoirse
This project off the coast of Ireland is led by Simply Blue Group, with CorPower as the OEM supplier. This will be delivered in two stages, starting with a 5MW array to be commissioned in 2026 and a second instalment by 2028, increasing the capacity to 30MW. The connected array of WECs will be located 4 km offshore and feed electricity back to land via an export cable.
Billia Croo, Orkney[7]
In May 2025, CorPower Ocean signed a berth agreement to build a 5MW wave energy project at EMEC’s Billia Croo grid-connected wave energy test site. It will include 14 WECs to operate for up to 15 years. Matthew Finn, Managing Director at EMEC, praised CorPower’s ’structured development’ approach over the years. Starting with small-scale testing in Orkney, moving to larger-scale with the HiWave-5 project and developing what could be the UK’s largest wave energy farm. 

Biomimicry allied to persistence bodes well for CorPower’s long-term future

Inspired by the heart’s DAPP system, allied to one of nature’s most resilient shapes, embodied in the WEC buoy, has enabled CorPower to function in some of the most inhospitable conditions. The firm’s innovation has also been significantly boosted by its collaboration with NTNU. Having secured €32 million Series B funding to support the commercial rollout of its technology, this collaborative partnership will develop AI control systems to optimise energy capture and tune and detune the WEC, enhancing resilience in the stormiest conditions. The Investment came after CorPower’s C4 WEC survived a record Atlantic storm. 

CorPower Ocean has crossed the threshold from being a prototype to commercial viability. Each development iteration brings incremental innovation, boosting energy capture and reducing cost. Its target is to deliver energy at a comparable cost to wind by 2030, looks well within its grasp.

Minesto

Background and inspiration - Kites and Dragons

Minesto 
started in 2007 as a spin-off from the Swedish aerospace company, SAAB. One of the co-founders, Magnus Landberg, was inspired by the aerodynamics of kites. He noticed that keeping the kite airborne when the wind was light required moving it in a figure-of-eight pattern[8] to generate sufficient lift. As the kite flies sideways, it moves faster than the air current, creating lift. Inspired by this principle, Landberg and his colleagues created an underwater kite. Knowing that water is denser than air by a factor of around eight hundred, if they could develop a kite to fly in a similar pattern under the sea, and across the current, it should generate considerable energy for conversion into electricity.  This ingenious idea gives the Minesto solution a significant advantage in low-flow coastal current environments around many islands. Most tidal stream technologies rely on fast-flowing currents. 

The underwater kite benefits from a relatively small footprint compared with other competing wave and tidal stream technologies, which means lower costs per MW of power. The kite moves much faster than the current, generating more energy capture than a fixed turbine, and at a lower price.  Figure 5 provides a pictorial overview of the Dragon Class Kite and how it works.
Figure 5. Tidal energy by Minesto. Source: Minesto Media Library

As for dragons, the Dragon Class is the poetic branding of its latest kite product line, formerly Deep Green.

A growing business focused on tidal stream energy

Today, the company has around fifty employees experienced in bringing new technology to market and engineers who collectively cover the engineering sciences that contribute to the design and development of its kites. This includes fluid dynamics, electrical engineering, and the automated control systems that allow each kite in an array to optimise its flight pattern in real time. Dr Martin Edlund, the CEO (since 2016), was involved from the start. He holds a Phd in Innovation Management; an MSc in engineering physics, and previously acted as a consultant at major companies like ABB, GE, Ericsson and others.

Proving its capabilities in Europe and Asia

Minesto’s technology has undergone extensive ocean testing since 2013. The company has embarked on three significant projects: 

  • off the Faroe Islands, an archipelago roughly halfway between Scotland and Iceland; 
  • in the Holyhead Deep off the Welsh coast; 
  • and in Taiwan, collaborating with the Research Centre for Ocean Energy and Strategies at the National Taiwan Ocean University.
Delivering electricity to the Faroes
Figure 5 references the substantial project contributing to the Faroe Islands’ ambitious goal to provide 100% renewable energy by 2030. Minesto partnered with Sev, the local utilities company, to develop a 200 MW large-scale roll-out over several tidal kite arrays, averaging 20-40 MW each. The first utility-scale tidal power plant, Dragon 12, rated at 1.2 MW, was commissioned in February 2024, delivering its first electricity to the national grid. The Dragon 12 is ten times more powerful than the 400 KW Dragon 4. It is substantially larger, weighing 28 tons per kite and 12 metres wide.  

In May 2025, to optimise power output, Minesto increased the tether length by 10 metres, generating a power boost of 25% at its 1.2 MW Dragon tidal power plant named Luna, in Vestmannassund. By lengthening the tether, the Dragon 12 underwater kite can operate in more powerful tidal streams. Continuous improvements enhance the commercial viability of the Dragon 12 system.
The Holyhead Deep
Holyhead Deep deployment is the world’s first low-flow tidal energy project.  The main challenge with low-flow tidal currents, defined as less than one metre per second, is that the kinetic energy is much lower than that of high-flow currents. But, this is where Minesto’s kite technology has a distinct advantage over fixed vertical or horizontal turbines that require faster currents to generate power. 

In 2017, Natural Resources Wales, the consenting authority, granted Minesto a licence to install and run a 0.5MW Deep Green power plant in the Holyhead Deep. The company had already secured a lease from The Crown Estate in 2014 for a 10MW installation. Holyhead Deep was selected as it is five miles out to sea and the port of Holyhead, now Minesto’s headquarters, and has a mean peak flow of 1.5-2m/s. 

The Holyhead Deep project is a collaborative venture supported by Morlais Marine Energy, manager of the West Anglesey Demonstration zone. The Morlais project, covering 35 sq km (13 sq miles) of the seabed, is expected eventually to deliver up to 240MW of electricity. It is being developed in phases and involves environmental studies to protect marine and seabird life.  Inyanga ( see Episode 2), which developed the HydroWing, is another participant in the Morlais Project, demonstrating the value of combining different technologies in projects of this magnitude. Other tidal stream companies include Magallanes Renovables (French), QED Naval (Scottish), and VerdantPower (USA).
In May 2015, Minesto received a €13 million grant from the European Regional Development Fund, followed by €14.9 million of EU funding through the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) in 2019, despite Brexit. Eventually, the Minesto array will reach 80MW capacity.

Establishing the first tidal energy array in Taiwan
In November 2016, Minesto formed an alliance with the Research Centre for Ocean Energy and Strategies at the National Taiwan Ocean University to explore the potential of Minesto’s Deep Green technology. In Late 2017, the company established a local subsidiary, Minesto Taiwan Ltd, to run the local project.

The first installation will be at the tidal stream site in Keelung Islet, north of Taiwan. Landberg sees this as a gateway to Asia through autonomous Deep Green Microgram systems and the array installation of utility-scale systems. This will eventually allow Taiwan to replace nuclear energy with renewable energy. 

Multi-site Anglo-French Tidal Stream Industry Energiser
In 2019, another significant project involving Minesto and others is the Tidal Stream Industry Energiser Project, known as TIGER.

The Anglo-French government collaboration, costing €45.4 million, 66% of which comes from the European Regional Development Fund,  aims to establish the cross-channel partnership as the basis for a European tidal stream industry, complete with a ready-made supply chain, for future projects. It anticipates creating over 22,000 jobs and comprises six sites between France and the UK. The project has already helped Minesto develop its Dragon Class generation of kite arrays, and other tidal stream companies, test and refine their tidal stream solutions.

There is considerable optimism that the collaborative experience between England and France and the technology and marine engineering companies will significantly reduce costs, boosting the business case for this critical renewable energy source globally.

Tidal Stream and Wave Energy are Coming of Age
At the beginning of this article, I expressed personal curiosity as my motivation to research and write about tidal stream and wave energy in the absence of news in mainstream media. Net Zero naysayers in the UK and USA  would have us believe that fossil fuels are the only feasible energy sources for ordinary people and industry in the near term. 

What I have discovered is that not only do tidal and wave energy have a massive contribution to make, but that in time, freed from fossil fuel addiction, those countries that adopt renewable energy from the sea, will become more resilient and leave the planet better than they found it, for future generations.

 It’s evident that if governments take a longer-term view and prime the investment pumps, wealthy investors will move away from the risk of stranded fossil-fuel assets and follow the pioneering impact investors who’ve already recognised this massive opportunity.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, but much greater than that is the creative imagination of these pioneering founders, who see what we cannot.

We’ll look at some more encouraging signs in episodes two and three. 

Get Started Now

Jeremy Cox

Categories -
Regenerative Energy
Share -
Tags -