Ocean energy company receives $1 million investment

Australian ocean energy company BioPower Systems has received a cornerstone investment of $1 million from the Australian government’s Renewable Energy Equity Fund, CVC REEF Limited.

The funds are being used to develop designs for full-scale prototypes of the company’s proprietary wave and tidal-current energy converters. The ocean power conversion technologies are based on the concept of biomimicry, using biological species as inspiration in engineering design. The bioWave wave power system and bioStream tidal power system both derive beneficial traits from certain sea plants and swimming species.

“By observing the way plants and fish interact with the ocean environment, we have been able to borrow some aspects and integrate these into our designs to improve efficiency and survivability,” BioPower’s chief executive officer, Dr Tim Finnigan, said.

The investment by CVC REEF is a follow-up to an earlier CVC REEF seed investment which provided funding to support model-scale prototype tank testing at the Australian Maritime College in Tasmania. Finnigan said the earlier investment had allowed the company to verify the technologies.

BioPower Systems is now in the process of securing further funds to develop a project that will involve ocean deployment of full-scale prototypes.