Possible wave of new jobs in region

Sep 15 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

UP to 150 jobs could be created on Teesside if a new concept to create electricity from wave power goes into full production.

Billingham’s Tees Alliance Group of companies (TAG), which had been working on the £300m SeaDragon oil rig project before it was shifted to Singapore, is to build prototype and full-scale wave power platforms for Norwegian renewable energy firm Langlee Wave Power.

The Langlee E2 wave power system is a 25sq m, 15m high floating tubular steel cage, tethered to the seabed in 20m-40m of water. It has ‘water wings’ below the surface, which are moved by the sea and swing panels backwards and forwards to generate electricity.

TAG managing director Alex Dawson said: “We have been asked to advise on the project management and the construction. They have asked us to build a prototype this year and a full scale build next year.

“If we were in full production, it could create 100 to 150 new jobs.”

Mr Dawson said: “There are a number of ideas around but this is the first one making progress. It can be placed among existing windfarms and connected to the existing infrastructure. The beauty of this kind of system is the cabling work is already in place. All we need to do is run a cable from the wave system, which will bring costs down.

“This hasn’t been done before. We have already produced a test model and could be at commercialisation stage within two years.”