Dr Matthew Hannon, Chancellor's Fellow of Technology and Innovation at Strathclyde's Business School in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, will be launching his new report into the UK's wave energy innovation strategy on November 2.
Dr Hannon's report, "Lost at sea or a new wave of innovation? Examining the effectiveness of UK's wave energy innovation strategy since 2000" draws upon expert reviews, documentary evidence and a wealth of quantitative data. It examines the extent to which the level and type of UK wave energy innovation support has contributed to this slow progress and highlights recommendations to help accelerate wave energy innovation in the future.
Wave energy has the potential to provide approximately 20% of the UK's electricity supply and make an important contribution to meeting its 2050 climate change target. In a bid to harness this resource the UK has invested of £370m in wave energy RD&D since 2000, including test infrastructure.
However, despite this investment, wave energy technology has yet to become commercially viable. Questions remain about whether the strategy taken by government and industry to accelerate wave energy technology innovation could be partly responsible for wave energy's slow progress.
The launch event takes place on Thursday November 2, between 6pm-8pm, in the University of Strathclyde Court Senate. Panellists include Chris Stark, Director of Energy and Climate Change, Scottish Government; Elva Bannon, Senior Research Engineer at Wave Energy Scotland; Andrew Macdonald, Senior Innovation Manager at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult; and Max Carcas, Managing Director at Caelulum Limited.
The event is free, but registration is essential. To register, please visit our Eventbrite page or email sarah.doherty@strath.ac.uk.