Swansea-based Marine Power Systems (MPS), which is developing technology to capture energy from ocean waves, has raised more than £1 million of funding from private investors in the Swansea area under the Enterprise Investment Scheme; the Welsh Assembly has also contributed £359,000.

The company will use the money to design, manufacture and test a purpose-built quarter-scale prototype of its WaveSub a wave energy converter. It is
expected that trials will begin next year.

Co-founded by Swansea University graduates Gareth Stockman and Graham Foster in 2009, the company has previously raised about £250,000 from a combination of Government grants and private investors to build its earlier prototypes.

Dr Stockman said: “We are very grateful to our investors, who clearly understand the revolutionary potential of the technology that we are developing. This will ultimately generate global interest, as wave energy can potentially be harnessed in almost any offshore environment using the technology that we have developed.

“We are very excited about embarking on the next phase of testing for the device. Should the results be as positive as we anticipate, we are only a few years away from the full commercialisation of this technology.”