Trident Energy, the independent developer of enabling technology for the offshore renewables sector, today announced the strengthening of its management team to support the development of its innovative PowerPod system. The team will be based in the Company’s new central Glasgow office.
Trident Energy has developed and patented a low cost linear generator that converts linear motion directly into electricity. They have positioned the product to be the “Intel Inside” of the offshore renewable energy market, offering a generic solution to reduce the costs of a wide range of host infrastructure. For example, the product can be co-deployed with offshore wind turbines, to increase the amount of electricity generated using the same infrastructure and reduce the overall cost of renewable electricity generation. The market opportunity is substantial, with over 15,000 offshore wind turbines predicted to be installed by 2020. The product can also be deployed as a low cost, high reliability generator integrated into wave and tidal devices.
The company was recently awarded a grant from Scottish Enterprise to support its expansion in Glasgow and the development of an operations team to further develop its technology. Jonathan Armstrong has been appointed to Trident Energy’s Board of Directors in the new role of Chief Operating Officer, responsible for overseeing the day-to-day running of the Company. He joins the existing Executive Board members CEO Steve Packard and Engineering Director Malcolm van den Bergh.
Jonathan has extensive experience of managing operations in high growth companies and delivering low carbon technology programmes in the energy sector. Previously, he held operational responsibility for a £10M p.a. turnover consultancy division. He also set up the Scotland office of a systems and engineering technology consultancy, growing it from start-up to 50 staff. During this time, he developed their offshore renewable energy business, which delivered consultancy assignments on 20 different wave, tidal and offshore wind technologies. Prior to this he delivered multi-£M technology programmes at nuclear utility British Energy (now EdF Energy).
Dr Susie Allison will be responsible for Business Development, including the management of relationships with customers, industry partners, trade associations and policy groups. Susie previously worked as a Technology Analyst within the Foresighting Team of ITI Scotland (latterly Scottish Enterprise), providing technical and market support for technology programmes throughout their development to early stage commercialization.
The team is completed with the appointment of Systems Engineer Alan Mackay. Alan previously worked at Frazer-Nash, where he provided project management and technical input across a variety of industries with a focus on renewable energy and nuclear power. Prior to this, Alan worked with Pelamis Wave Power, where he was involved in developing and implementing control algorithms to improve device performance.
Trident Energy’s CEO Steve Packard said: “I am delighted that Trident Energy has secured some of the foremost talent in the sector to support the development of our innovative technology to make offshore renewable energy commercial. I look forward to working with Jonathan and the team to prove that Trident Energy’s technology can help developers harness the power of the sea to generate affordable, clean electricity for all.”
The PowerPod’s great strength is its simplicity of design, which converts the movement of the waves directly into electricity without the need for intermediate systems such as hydraulics and gearboxes. This makes the system very reliable and controllable, reducing the cost of offshore renewable energy.
Trident Energy’s technology has been manufactured at full-scale, following a rigorous programme of testing at Narec, the UK’s national translational research centre for accelerating the grid integration of renewable energy systems. This demonstrated that the PowerPod can successfully produce power in a variety of sea states, including the more benign wave conditions experienced at a typical offshore wind farm site. As a result of these very encouraging test results, Trident Energy is in discussions with developers with a view to testing the technology in offshore sea trials.