Aquamarine Power administrators seek sale of IP

Administrators for Aquamarine Power are seeking buyers for the collapsed wave energy firm’s intellectual property (IP).

Aquamarine's intellectual property has been put up for sale

The Edinburgh-based firm ceased trading last month after joint administrators from BDO failed to secure a sale of the business, which employed 14 people.

BDO has now called in Glasgow-based intellectual property firm Metis Partners to handle the sale of Aquamarine’s IP assets, including the technology behind its patent-protected Oyster device, which captures energy from waves and converts it into electricity. Aquamarine spent more than £90 million on the development of its system, said Metis, which has set a deadline of noon on 21 January for offers.

In September, Aquamarine received an €800,000 (£581,600) cash injection from the EU in a bid to improve the performance of its Oyster wave energy converter. The company was aiming to install its third full-scale prototype, having already built and operated two full-scale Oyster machines at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

Nat Baldwin, head of corporate recovery at Metis Partners, said: “Anyone who acquires these unique IP assets has the opportunity to capitalise substantially on a technology which will only become more critical as the years go by.

“We expect the sale to be of interest to companies active in the renewable energy, oil and gas, energy efficiency, engineering and desalination sectors as well as to patent aggregators.”