The creditors of Australian wave energy firm Oceanlinx have appointed receivers for the company after it piled more than $10 million in debt.
Troubled Oceanlinx has Macquarie Bank as a major secured creditor and at least 60 unsecured creditors.
In February, the commercial-scale Oceanlinx’s pilot 1MW GreenWave wave energy generator was damaged en route to its destination of Port MacDonnell in the south-east of South Australia.
Oceanlinx’s plan had been to install the 24m by 21m, 3000 tonne unit 3km offshore and transfer the electricity it generated to the grid via a subsea cable. Once operational, the 1MW turbine was expected to produce enough electricity to power 1000 homes, as reported by Renew Economy.
Instead, the unit has been towed to shallow waters at Carrickalinga and, at the time of writing, it is still not clear what the developer’s next step would be.
The GreenWave project received financing from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Australian Research Council, conditional on certain installation deadlines.
Formed more than 15 years ago, Oceanlinx was a promising player in Australia’s ocean energy sector, having a number of wave power prototypes, including three units off the NSW coast, and had plans to expand to North America, Asia and Europe, as reported by Renew Economy.
The company’s award-winning “greenwave” technology – which works by using waves to produce high pressure air, which is converted into electricity by a turbine – was named in a 2012 CSIRO study as one of Australia’s most promising and advanced home-grown wave energy technologies.
