Pelamis closing in on funding

By PETER RANSCOMBE
Published on 03/03/2013 00:00

WAVE power developer Pelamis expects to seal a funding deal before the end of the year to commercialise its “sea snake” technology.

Per Hornung Pedersen, chief executive of the Edinburgh-based firm, originally believed an investment in the firm would have been made last summer.

Pelamis launched the search for a strategic partner in 2011 but Pedersen said the “process has been dragged out” by “challenging” conditions in the industrial sector.Instead of an outright sale at this point, Pedersen said he would consider bringing in a combination of investors and industrial partners.

He told Scotland on Sunday: “We are continuing the dialogue with a number of interested parties and we’re looking at different structures that might work.

“What might happen is we have a ‘transition phase’, when the ultimate end owner may get in now with a combination of industrial partners to take the project to the next level and then somewhere during that period the final solution will fall into place.”

His comments come after Pelamis last week received a £1.4 million grant from the Energy Technologies Institute, a public-private partnership, to bring down the cost of producing its devices.

Engineering firms such as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Glasgow-based Weir Group have been linked to Pelamis, along with overseas players such as Switzerland’s ABB, US firm Caterpillar and Siemens of Germany.