Climate Confident

Beyond Sun and Wind: The Ocean’s Electrifying Potential

August 09, 2023 Tom Raftery / Jan Skjoldhammer Season 1 Episode 133
Beyond Sun and Wind: The Ocean’s Electrifying Potential
Climate Confident
More Info
Climate Confident
Beyond Sun and Wind: The Ocean’s Electrifying Potential
Aug 09, 2023 Season 1 Episode 133
Tom Raftery / Jan Skjoldhammer

Send me a message

In today's episode of the Climate Confident podcast, I'm thrilled to navigate the vast ocean of wave energy with Jan Skjoldhammer, Founder and CEO of NoviOcean. Join us as we explore the boundless possibilities of the deep blue!

Have you ever wondered about the untapped potential lying beneath our ocean waves? Jan and his team at NoviOcean are pioneering innovations that might just revolutionise the renewable energy sector. With wave energy's potential to efficiently power our world, the future looks incredibly bright.

What captivated me most? NoviOcean's commitment to environmental harmony. Preliminary research suggests their wave energy tech integrates seamlessly with marine ecosystems, ensuring our aquatic friends thrive alongside our energy advancements. 🐠🐬

If your interest lies in the future of renewables and the ocean's role in it, this is a can't-miss episode. We discuss NoviOcean's inspiring journey, their aims, and the broader challenges and opportunities in the rapidly evolving energy landscape.

A little sneak peek: Imagine projects that could contribute to saving 500 tons of CO2 per unit per year! And believe me, there's so much more.

Ever pondered how major energy players are responding to this new wave (pun intended) of energy solutions? Dive in with us to uncover it all. 🌍🔋

Listen in, be inspired, and together, let's set sail on this sustainable voyage! And/or check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

Stay Climate Confident! 🌱✌️

P.S. For a deeper look into NoviOcean's transformative work, head to their website or link up with Jan directly on LinkedIn. As always, your thoughts and questions are welcomed – let's keep the conversation flowing!

Support the Show.

Podcast supporters
I'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing supporters:

  • Lorcan Sheehan
  • Hal Good
  • Jerry Sweeney
  • Andreas Werner
  • Devaang Bhatt
  • Stephen Carroll
  • Marcel Roquette
  • Roger Arnold

And remember you too can Support the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one.

Contact
If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn.

If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Credits
Music credits - Intro by Joseph McDade, and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper

Climate Confident +
Become a supporter of the show!
Starting at $3/month
Support
Show Notes Transcript

Send me a message

In today's episode of the Climate Confident podcast, I'm thrilled to navigate the vast ocean of wave energy with Jan Skjoldhammer, Founder and CEO of NoviOcean. Join us as we explore the boundless possibilities of the deep blue!

Have you ever wondered about the untapped potential lying beneath our ocean waves? Jan and his team at NoviOcean are pioneering innovations that might just revolutionise the renewable energy sector. With wave energy's potential to efficiently power our world, the future looks incredibly bright.

What captivated me most? NoviOcean's commitment to environmental harmony. Preliminary research suggests their wave energy tech integrates seamlessly with marine ecosystems, ensuring our aquatic friends thrive alongside our energy advancements. 🐠🐬

If your interest lies in the future of renewables and the ocean's role in it, this is a can't-miss episode. We discuss NoviOcean's inspiring journey, their aims, and the broader challenges and opportunities in the rapidly evolving energy landscape.

A little sneak peek: Imagine projects that could contribute to saving 500 tons of CO2 per unit per year! And believe me, there's so much more.

Ever pondered how major energy players are responding to this new wave (pun intended) of energy solutions? Dive in with us to uncover it all. 🌍🔋

Listen in, be inspired, and together, let's set sail on this sustainable voyage! And/or check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

Stay Climate Confident! 🌱✌️

P.S. For a deeper look into NoviOcean's transformative work, head to their website or link up with Jan directly on LinkedIn. As always, your thoughts and questions are welcomed – let's keep the conversation flowing!

Support the Show.

Podcast supporters
I'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing supporters:

  • Lorcan Sheehan
  • Hal Good
  • Jerry Sweeney
  • Andreas Werner
  • Devaang Bhatt
  • Stephen Carroll
  • Marcel Roquette
  • Roger Arnold

And remember you too can Support the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one.

Contact
If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn.

If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Credits
Music credits - Intro by Joseph McDade, and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper

Jan Skjoldhammer:

The potential is huge and I believe it is, is potentially then larger than offshore wind because offshore wind has twice the weight per kilowatt hour than we have, twice the number of parts. And it's twice the area and we are, let's say we are three times more stable, but then again, if you combine them, the wind power, and the wave power, the base load is up to five times higher than just having wind power by itself

Tom Raftery:

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast. The number one podcast, showcasing best practices in climate emission, reductions and removals. And I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice, to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 133 of the Climate Confident podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and before we start today's show I have a couple of quick announcements. The first is I'm taking a couple of weeks break for vacation. So no episode next week or the week after. So that's no episode on the 16th or the 23rd of August. The next episode will go live on August 30th, Wednesday, August 30th, 7 a. m. CEST. So that's the first announcement. The second announcement is we have a new supporter of the podcast. William Brent stepped up and became a supporter a couple of days ago. So thank you very much for that, William. You might remember William was on the podcast as a guest a couple of weeks back, four or five weeks back at this point, I gotta say. He's the, CMO of Husk Energy and they're empowering communities in India and Africa with renewable energy and storage microgrids essentially to bring energy to communities that so far are without electricity. So, thanks again for that William. If you're not already a supporter, I'd like to encourage you to consider joining our community of like minded individuals who are passionate about climate. Supporting the podcast is easy and affordable with options starting as low as just three euros. That's less than the cost of a cup of coffee and your support will make a huge difference in keeping this show going strong. To become a supporter simply click on the support link in the show notes of this or any episode or visit tinyurl. com slash climate pod Now, without further ado, with me on the show today, I have my special guest Jan. Jan, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Thank you very much, Tom. Happy to be with you today. Yes, I'm a Norwegian living in Sweden. I have a background as an officer. And economics degree as well. And then I've been flying aircraft actually for 25 years last 22 in SAS, also air show displays with bomber aircraft, et cetera. And while I was flying, I made a large property deal, you may say, which gave me some liberty for some time, at least, and then I had to decide what do I now do for the next 15 years? Just keep on flying, which was comfortable, nice and fun in many ways with nice colleagues or do something more meaningful. Well, in my drawer, I've had many patents ideas over the years and seeing time and time again, other people taking, let's say my ideas to the market 25 years later, slightly irritating, but I had one left there. Or at least the better ones that was a wave power solution. I drew it when I was 25 years old. That's quite some years ago and I was thinking that, well, now we have the climate crisis going into an emergency and it would be nice to do something meaningful. So after one year waiting for that back I quit SAS and, and basically said, now I'm going to save the climate crisis and live part of it with profitable wave power.

Tom Raftery:

Nice, nice, nice. And before we go any further on that, I should just mention for people who are watching this, if you're seeing my face looking a little weird, it's not that I got into a bar fight last night. No, I had a minor surgery earlier this week. And so, hence the bandage and the bruising. And so, that out of the way, sorry Jan, we'll come back to your wave power idea. So, tell me a little bit more about it, because wave power has been around for a while, but hasn't really taken off. There are multiple challenges with wave power, not least... The fact that it's expensive and also the fact that the marine environment is notoriously unforgiving. So how is your wave power solution different or is it? You know, how are you addressing those kind of challenges?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Let's say start with the last question first, how it is different. Basically, the lifting force is is four times higher than the second best. Multiple times more than most other ones. The output is well, officially it's 500 kilowatt now on the webpage, but it's, it's tests have shown it's, it's coming up at least a 700 kilowatt, which also is multiple times more than, than, other ones. And then when you compare the weight to power ratio, we are exceptional. Then add to that the number of parts, et cetera, et cetera, complexity. We are quite different. That was enough for the bragging, but then it comes into, there are two ways of extracting energy from, from wave power. The waves, they, they have a circular motion in the water seen from the side. And they also go up and down as we all know. And you can extract by having something like a plate in the water. Horizontal or vertical and then getting power from, let's say, reducing the speed of those particles, the weight of the particles by Newton's law. Or you can lock air underwater. So when the wave is rising, you have a buoy of some sort standing still, then you lock energy underwater. And once they go upwards, then you have it coming upwards and you have a mechanism that you know, converts that lifting force into energy. And there are many solutions on both parts. Interesting enough we have done quite heavy, let's say, simulations looking into both aspects just to, you know, compare them. What we have found is that if you are going by the particles, Newton's law, you need 30 times the area in the water to equal the amount of power or size of the, of the unit needed when you use Archimedes. And 60% of the solutions are on the Newton side. So in our, you know, opinion, that is very, very difficult because, you know, material has weight, cost money and transportation deployment, everything is difficult when it's big and produces little power. So we have to go by Archimedes. And then most units are round bouys. And the limit in size is normally from 8 to 12 meters due to the wavelength being in the summer seasons at least down to 30 meters. If it is too large, you're cutting the waves. So, if you have a round one, you can lift at most perhaps 150 tons of this size if it's down in the water. In our case, it is rectangular because the waves are also mainly rectangular. At least the largest swells coming in, you know, the ones that are created across the Atlantic, for instance. So we are laying them with a 38 meter float times eight meters with the long sides towards the wave front. And that way we can lift up to 600 tons. And then just to continue slightly on that one, you can use Archimedes laws in two ways. Either you are resonant, which is jumping up and down in the waves like a kid on a trampoline. You're trying to make higher oscillations than the wave itself, or you can go non resonant. That means you're going slowly upwards like a weightlifter, lifting perhaps just half of the wave height, but with tremendous force. We're in the latter category and that has many advantages. We can come back to that but, but basically, that are the principles in use today.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. So, Tell me a little more about your solution. How are you actually generating power from the wave motion?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Yes, we have stolen, or borrowed, the hydropower plant, which is up in the mountains. You know, there you have a dam, and you have a tube going down, perhaps 500 meters, causing 50 bars of pressure. And that pressure is then converted into water hitting a hydropower plant, or a turbine with high speed, normally a Pelton turbine. And that spins around quickly with high energy. And on the same axis is a generator, which creates energy then and goes out to the grid. So we have the same system, just upside down. So what we do is that when we are in the lowest in the, in the wave, we lock the system, it cannot move upwards. And they have a hydraulic cylinder going below the float. With the piston rod going down to the seafloor, also with a wire on the, on the end there. And when we have the pressure we need, this water filled cylinder presses the same 50 bars of pressure upwards to the same Pelton turbine, the same generator, and create energy, which goes then via seafloor cable into land. So it's just a hydropower plant, coupled to a hydraulic cylinder, coupled to a float. So there's three parts. Very simple, few parts, light pipes which is then different from anyone else. That's why we have this tremendous power. And how much power does it give? As I said, the lifting force is 600 tons in waves over 45 meters. Normally, of course, less because waves are anything from 1 to 4 meters normally, depending on summer, winter, and location. But there's a, there's a, in higher wave, you are hitting that turbine with about 2,000 liters of water per second, two tons of water with up to 300 kilometers per hour. Imagine taking your neighbor's car, crashing it into brick wall at 300 kilometers per hour every second. That is six megawatts of power lifting force in those seconds. The average output in your or what we can do at most then is 700 kilowatt in, in higher waves. That's if you have continuous let's say four meter waves outside your, your original home country Tom, Ireland. Yeah. But of course then outside Spain, for instance you would average on the coast there perhaps 250 to 300 kilowatts per year. More in winter, less in summer.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, so talk to me a little bit about geographical differences. Where are good sites for wave farms and where are less good sites and why?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Yes we're coming back slightly to how the winds are created. They're created by rotation of the, of the earth. And, and then the heating of air masses different over land and sea, and then low and high pressures. So waves are created over time and distance going down from the west towards the east. That's why you spend longer time flying an aircraft from Europe to New York than the other way around because you have tailwinds coming back. And those tailwinds are creating waves over distance then, so on the west coast of the continents of Europe, Africa, and the American continent, plus Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, for instance, you have strong westerly winds and waves coming in. That's where you have the bang for the buck. And then there's a belt around equator from about 20 north to 20 south, where there's less wave height. The waves are, though, very, very long and nice, like swells, so it's possible to use them just with a larger float in our case. But most wave power systems do not work well in those areas because they are resonant, they go up and down like a, like a trampoline system. And then you have too long time distance between the waves. And then you have more energy than from 20 north to about 60 North and the same on the Southern Hemisphere. So in practical use them from Trondheim in Norway, all the way down to Mauritania, excellent waves. Then you have Namibia and South Africa, excellent waves. And then you have Alaska, Canada, U. S. basically, less of Mexico, and then it's Peru and Chile. And then as I mentioned, the Asian countries Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and those, all those are excellent. I think 13 of the 20 most polluting countries in the world have excellent wave conditions. So we can make a huge difference that way.

Tom Raftery:

And when you, when you say polluting, are you talking about carbon pollution or some other form of pollution?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

I was thinking carbon pollution, yes. Okay. Okay. CO2. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Raftery:

Just to clarify. Cool. Great. There's also the challenge with wave power that there's not a lot of people on the water trying to use the electricity that it would be generating. So how are you moving the electricity from the wave farms to where the demand for electricity is?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Yes, it's, it's basically the same as, as wind power. You have floating offshore wind and you have fixed based offshore wind. So let's say you have 20 or 50 units out there as an array it's called. In our case, there's space 200 meters apart. Wind power towers need to have one kilometer apart. So get more energy per sea area than wind power, by the way. But then you have all cables coming down to a subsea collection hub. And these cables are dynamic. They can move with the float up and down, exactly the same thing as with offshore floating wind. And then you have a fixed stationary cable on, on the seafloor going into land. But there's one big difference. Wind power offshore will normally be located up to 50 kilometers offshore due to the, you know, they go high up in the air at 250 meters. And they are making noise and disturbing, and no one wants to have them outside their own let's say, window. It's fine with someone else's window, but not their own window. So yeah, that's how it is. But wave power. The waves have full force coming into the coastline until they start hitting the, the sea floor. That is at a depth of about 30 meters. So we can be located from 30 meters to 200 meters depth. Normally from 30 to 120 is more practical. And that would normally be from anything from 500 meters to five kilometers out. So we have much shorter cable. Much shorter opex, the cost of, of maintaining the systems or operating them. And then in addition they are hardly visible because they are much lower, of course, than wind power and then don't make any noise of significance. So you're saving costs in that way. And of course the cable is much shorter. They can though be co located with the offshore wind power. So those listeners which are in that segment happy to contact me and talk about co location of this, of the wind power plants. We're then lowering the, let's say crashing impact on the turrets because so, you know, we extract energy from the waves, they get lower and we can be in between the wind power turrets and more than double output from the same sea area. So if you have a certain net cost for operational rent, of course, you can, let's say, divide or split that cost on, on, on more units. So it's sensible to collocate them also because there is a lack of coastal sea area coming up in the future, so why not co-locate

Tom Raftery:

Sure, sure. What about co locating with solar? Because I know there's a rise now in floating solar as well?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Definitely needed. We can co locate, but as you might have seen on, on some of your information, we have, well, since we now already have the float, we have the cable, we have the mooring lines, we have the communication system, like also solar power needs to have. So we said, why not use our float as the base for solar panels? So now we have actually applied for a grant from the European union, from EIC now for designing and installing between 400 meters to 600 square square meters of solar panels on top. Mm-hmm., that's is about, you know, plus minus 100 kilowatt peak from the solars. It makes sense because we don't have, don't have any cost for the, the float, the anchoring and the, you know, systems on board, which they have. And the cable, so it just will combine us to in hybrid solution. Also in the summer months, there's less wind power and less wave power, but there's sun power. So by combining that you always provide lots of power, either by wave power or by sun power, of course, majority from the wave power, because waves are much more dense than than solar and wind, but it's a nice addition and it costs very little. So we are also floating solar.

Tom Raftery:

Nice. Nice. Okay. One of the criticisms generally of renewables is the fact that they're intermittent. The sun obviously is only up, you know, depending on where you are, eight to 10 to 12 hours per day sometimes a little more in summer and how, depending on how north or south you are. And the wind, obviously, as well, isn't always blowing. There are always waves, not always the same height, not always the same frequency, but they are going up and down and up and down, so the electricity you're creating is obviously coming in bursts of those 700 kilowatts or whatever it is as well. How is that addressed?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

There are two aspects to this. The first of all into, you know, this intermittency of wind power and sun power. Of course, sun power is gone for 12 hours or more per day. And wind power is basically down to 10% for 10 days a month. If you combine these two sources as 40% of the hours of the month. There's little wind and no sun. So what do we do? We, of course, pay huge prices for the electricity bill those days when there's little wind and no sun. It's been fluctuating, you know, widely this winter, for instance. And that's due to the lack of those green energy sources. So we burn fossils. Coal, gas and oil, those hours to the main extent. Of course, there's a base load of hydropower and those which can be adjusted somewhat up and down, but mainly we burn fossils. And then of course we can have storage by batteries and some other sources as well. And the battery storage as grid scale is basically impossible. The number of batteries, the, the amount of cobalt and lithium needed is impossible to extract at grid scale. For households yes, and electric cars yes. But it's, it's, it's, it's not possible the amount of batteries needed, but luckily, you know what I'm going to say, there's wave power. So, in those hours when there is no wind and sun, there's normally wave power. And how come, well, the wind over time and distance as mentioned, creates waves. But when the wind goes down, we all know that the waves remains for days, hours and days. So in those hours and days, when you're burning vast amount of fossils, when the utility companies are scratching their head and look into, you know, how can we solve this? Then you have wave power. Lots of wave power, clean energy. So in my mind, you can choose between going then wind power, solar power, and fossils storage, or you can go wind power, solar power, wave power, and much less fossils and storage. It's actually a no brainer and so far, not so many know about this, but it's coming. I can assure you because there's a huge problem and there's a solution. It will happen. No doubt. Big time. Okay. And then regarding you had the second question was about the, the intermittency from every unit. Yes, we provide 700 kilowatts and then nothing, 700 kilowatts up and down. And that has no influence on larger grid, it doesn't matter. Because there's like switching the, the factory, you know, light switch on and off in, in, in a factory or turning on a machine. On smaller grids we can alleviate that by having supercapacitors on board, which, which evens out the power. But of course, if you have five units or more, they're hitting the waves at different times. Then it by itself is evens out that one unit is more of a problem. If you have five, 10 or 250, it doesn't matter. It's just stable.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, perfect. What about the cost? Because the cost, if it's too expensive, it doesn't matter how efficient it is in terms of its generation. You know, it will only succeed if it can be competitive with, unfortunately, fossil fuels.

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Definitely. You know, many talk about, you know, helping the environment and want to do it, but there's also always the cost issue. So it's difficult today to, to convince the shareholders to spend money on something which they lose money on basically, it's difficult. Wind power and sun power started at about 70 cents per kilowatt hour. Now they're down to, you know, onshore wind is down to, you know, 5 cents. So in that, that range offshore wind power, you know, depends on the array size. Anything from, from 5 cents to to 15 cents per kilowatt hour. And then they are going and profitable, but they had subsidies for 20 or 30 years. And that subsidy is coming from the government's main mainly made them have, you know, a learning curve going down there. And once they can come down to, you know, about 10 cents or 15 cents, you saw an explosion in the deployments because they were, you know, becoming basically able to make money also besides the, the subsidies. Subsidies also, of course, going down over time. And the same thing happened with solar panels. Once the costs were coming down, bang, it went up. And the same thing will happen with tidal power and wave power, no doubt. The subsidies right now for, for tidal energy is around 25 cents in Canada and in the UK. And in Taiwan for wave power is mainly right now and only in Taiwan and the European Commission has stated that they will see or make subsidies, et cetera, available by our incentives in nicer word to make this happen because they want to see 500 megawatt deployed of ocean energy in Europe by 2030. And they want to see 40 gigawatts. It's 40,000 megawatt deployed by 20 50. And since the cost for wave power, you know, in general is from 30 to 50 cents per kilowatt hour. Now in the beginning, they will need to make similar subsidies as they made for, for wind and solar, but just 50% of level because we are cheaper than they had. So let's say it this way, we are starting at the cost on our unit which is below 25 cents. So we're starting at the cost, which is below what wind power and sun power had. Okay. So we add the same learning curve, steep in the beginning, then more shallow, but it, it indicates quite clearly that we will be going below, mind my words now, below offshore wind in some years, in cost per megawatt hour. Add to that, that we are more stable, it's a better energy source. Then the potential is huge, of course, business wise, and also for the climate change. Because we can mitigate the use of fossils and storage. So, we're talking big numbers here. Very big numbers.

Tom Raftery:

What kind of numbers?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Well, the estimation is that by IPCC, for instance, that wave power can deliver the same amount of energy worldwide as all of today's electricity consumption. All. That's 29, 000 terawatt hours per year. So that is quite, you know, there's basically no limit to any company which does this properly. Money wise, by 2050, if we take just 10% of the European market, that should equal about 12 billion in sales just in Europe. The global market is, is six times larger. So we are talking closely you know, in the possible range of 100 billion in theory, at least that should be enough for, for most let's say investors and other ones. The potential is huge and I believe it is, is potentially then larger than offshore wind because offshore wind has twice the weight per kilowatt hour than we have, twice the number of parts. And it's twice the area and we are, let's say we are three times more stable, but then again, if you combine them, the wind power, and the wave power, the base load is up to five times higher than just having wind power by itself. So we can help the wind power guys to also make more money by having all in both wave power and wind power at the same time. Because they can deliver clean energy, which is what the customers want. And having to spend less time on storage, for instance, which does nothing.

Tom Raftery:

And to your earlier point, for wind farms who might be paying rent on the ocean floor, you can help them get better value for the rent they're paying by increasing the amount that they generate. Plus also the infrastructure costs are reduced for you if you're co locating there because they already have the distribution cables in place, right?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Correctly. I think most people would like to get double the bang for the same money. And that's, that's what you're getting. It's, it's again, a no brainer. If you get double the power from the same sea area, of course, it's very useful. And then of course you have maintenance people going forth and back with the large boats and stuff. They can of course maintain and look after both wind power and wave power at the same time. And, and any, let's say regional government agents would love to get more power from the same area because you know also you have fishermen's you have shipping lines There's a little bit more and more competition also for the the offshore sea area So anyone will be happy to see more power coming from the same area, it's it's it's very logical. Yes

Tom Raftery:

Okay. There's a criticism as well of offshore wind farms of the environmental impact on sea life or bird life, or, you know, have you studied that for the wave arrays? Is there an environmental impact that they have?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Yes, it's a good question. Let me comment something on wind power, which I read some time ago, which I think is important for which most people don't know about. The onshore wind power turrets in Germany. Every unit, the size is perhaps in, in, in the range one to two megawatt, mostly. They each killing 40 kilo of insects every year, 40 kilos, 40 kilos of insects. That's probably the, the, the volume of your house or more per, per unit wind power unit. And nowadays the, the number of, if you drive the car in the afternoon you will see that the amount of, of hits by insects is measured to be 10%, what it was you know, 20 years ago. I'm not saying that wind power is solely, is responsible for that. There are many factors, but it's important. The mosquito bites I've had this summer or last summer is nothing compared to what I had when I was a kid. And without insects, we have a problem. So, that's one, let's say challenge for, for, for wind power owners to look into. Not so well known. But they have seen so far zero negative effects by wave power nothing on the seafloor, no fish no organisms are being you know, trapped by this. So, so far the results by, you know, quite a few investigations have been very positive. Same also goes for tidal, by the way, they have a prop going around underwater. And there's been extremely little impact the fish swim around, even if it goes, that goes quite slowly by the way, but, but so tidal and wave power so far has zero negative impact on nature.

Tom Raftery:

Sure. And where are you guys with your wave generators now? What kind of stage of development are you at?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

We're a so called TRL 6. That means we have tested it in, first of course, deep simulations by third parties. Then bid a, a 1 to 5 or 1 to 8 scale depending on how we measure it. Prototype, out to sea for five months in wave tanks, two times in England and one time in France. And then we have been validating those numbers by our simulations model. And the, the essential thing is here that we, our simulations matches the output from what we get out to sea perfectly. It's 100% the curves are the same, but when an extrapolate those numbers to the full scale unit, we get actually close to one megawatt of output in waves of 45 meters which is unique in this sector. I'm saying that 700 to be more conservative. We might change the number. We should say officially that's 500 kilowatt now because we have shown these numbers. So, so, now we're going in from this prototype level to the full scale design. We've got European funding for that about 2 million euros and also some from the Swedish authorities. And that is for the design and the production, deployment and testing of the full scale 38 meter units. It goes in a test site, most likely close to you outside Spain, just north of Bilbao, there is a test site called BIMEP which we will be deploying the float in, in less than two years. And then a half year later it comes to the machinery, the power takeoff into the middle there. That is our, our plan so far. Of course, this doesn't come at, at peanuts money because the first unit is always very expensive. So we would like partnerships with larger oil companies, utility companies, industrial companies, shipyards perhaps a, a a constellation where they all pitch in a little, bit and we do it together. Or if one major partner want to see their own name on, on the side, on the float, perhaps 35 meters long, says Shell renewables on every front page of the larger magazines coming up you know, quite often. And then later on, having people coming on board, the, the CEO, VIPs, Media, and perhaps Royals coming on board, the float in, in two and three years. I think that's very important for them because they're doing something sensible. They're showing that they can do something more than just look on and sit on the fence. And I think also for internal marketing, if you are Shell, BP, Equinor or other oil companies struggling with attracting, you know, young people coming into the sector qualified people. Then of course you can show that while we are doing something, we are doing something sensible, just more than just buying another, you know, wind power turrets here and there. You're doing something new, take a little risk, small money for them anyway, and then show that you're doing something sensible by monthly newsletters. Having your, your, your, employees coming on board. I think we can do something for them that this way. So both internal and external marketing is what we can offer them to come along on this exciting journey.

Tom Raftery:

And what's the revenue model from this?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

There are three revenue models one is on production and turnkey delivered to the utility companies or islands. There are 2000 islands globally that mostly run on diesel and PVs. And they also are of course interested in having clean energy because they are seeing perhaps more than others, the, the, the, the hurricanes and the rising sea levels coming in. And so that's a turnkey. And it's also B of O built on operate because later on, we will see that the, we're starting at then around 20 cents per kilowatt hour. But after 200 units, we're coming down to a half of that because of the learning curve. That's 10 times quicker than, than, than wind power and, and sun power did. They needed more than, you know, 13 times more deploy capacity before they came to the same cost level. So in that case, you could have a hundred percent profit per kilowatt hour in theory, at least for that. So it's important also to own ourself might not come first. And then you have the partnership working with partners also for production and they can have their own build on operate, and then you have licensing. Because we can build perhaps 50, 100, 200 per year in our production line coming up. But if you have 10 or 20 licensees around the world doing the same, you know, production, perhaps costing just 100k per unit in license fee, then those companies can help us deploy in thousands of units over the coming decades. That's how we make a big difference for the climate change. That's my goal. I do this 60%, I say, for the climate change to mitigate. I'm not a young man anymore, so it's, it's not the other motivation. Let's have it 20% for the money. Fine. Good for my, my, my, my children and 20% because I like doing a project. I think it's just fun to be, you know, entrepreneur.

Tom Raftery:

Nice. Jan, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now. Is there any question that I have not asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

I think we have touched upon the, the main areas. One more philosophical thing is that, yes, wind power and sun power is large right now because they came first basically by accident. I had this in my drawer, you know, since I was 25 and it could have been same as wind power today, possibly. So wind power came first before us. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's better. It was just first. So time will show I think we have a good chance of, being better in many ways. The sense is, of course, working together, the, the energy mix. And then of course, since we use less material per unit, our, our climate impact, you know, the, the amount of emissions, the life cycle emissions is lower. So for you know, every unit per year will produce a savings on the climate for about 500 tons of CO2 per unit per year. And the emissions, the life cycle emissions is a 7%. of the European Union's, you know, average emission per megawatt hour, including all the wind power and solar power or renewables and hydropower plants. So because of the lightweight and so. So by, you know, having a very short carbon payback time, we can make a huge difference for the climate. Other systems require more years to go break, even if they even can do that. So that's also important for the ones that, you know, think more than just on the business side. We can do something, you know, important also for the climate in having less emissions per unit for lifetime. And also if I might add, the lifetime we're aiming for is 40 plus years.

Tom Raftery:

Impressive. Jan that's been fascinating. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we talked about today, where would you have me direct them?

Jan Skjoldhammer:

It could be of course, to our homepage, just Google Novi Ocean in one word and you will find the homepage. We have everything on it, the simulations, the data, the output the presentation, even the business plan is presently on the webpage and also if someone is, is more serious in, in, in perhaps investigating how we can help them on the business side, most welcome to contact me personally on LinkedIn. And there's also many posts that of course they can read about and they can even see this interview coming up in a while on LinkedIn. So, welcome to have a chat and and we have time for that. And I do enjoy talking business with, anyone.

Tom Raftery:

Perfect. Perfect. Great. I'll put those links in the show notes as well, Jan, so that people can find them there. Super. Jan, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Jan Skjoldhammer:

Thank you, Tom, for having me. A pleasure.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to Tom raftery@outlook.com. Or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please, don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks, catch you all next time.

Podcasts we love