A team of four students from Cranfield University, calling themselves the Wave Whisperers, defeated eight other teams to win the prestigious ‘Bombora Wave Power Challenge’ cup, sponsored by Welsh Government. The inaugural ‘Bombora Wave Power Challenge’ gathered forty dynamic students from across the UK to battle it out in an intensive technical engineering and water sporting event. The students were thrown into marine energy challenges, relating to Bombora’s innovative mWave technology, to test their problem solving and innovation skills.
As well as the winning team from Cranfield University, two Pembrokeshire College teams and engineering departments from prestigious UK Universities including Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Plymouth and Southampton took part. Against stiff competition, the Cranfield team won both technical challenges whilst the determined paddlers from Cardiff University’s team, ‘Rhymney May’, triumphed in the kayaking challenge.
Having been put through their paces by the judges and their fellow competitors Andy Jones, the Chief Executive Officer at the Port of Milford Haven, awarded the prizes to the winning teams. He said he was “delighted to see so many universities taking part in the inaugural event and was thrilled that Bombora had initiated the challenge weekend to promote the industry and commercial opportunities in the region”.
The objective of the event was to inspire the next generation of engineers, celebrate the beautiful Pembrokeshire National Park landscape where Bombora is headquartered and encourage positive engagement and relationships with industry, academic institutions and the local community as well as promote the commercial opportunities within the marine energy sector in Wales.
The judges, Professor Ian Masters of Swansea University, Paul Ellsmore of ORE Catapult and Cam Algie, Chief Technology Officer of Bombora had a very difficult task selecting the winners from an array of innovative and thought-provoking presentations.
Sam Leighton, Managing Director of Bombora spoke about the success of the event saying “It’s been a wonderful opportunity to welcome the next generation of engineers to this beautiful corner of West Wales and share our exciting mWave Project. All the students participated wholeheartedly, and we hope left inspired and may even consider renewable marine energy as a career path. “
Sam also commented on the benefits to his team “We have all really enjoyed having the opportunity to share our passion for renewable wave energy and our project as well as inspire these talented young engineers. “
Bombora is currently preparing to install its 1.5MW mWaveTM demonstration project in the Marine Energy Testing Area off the coast of Pembrokeshire, funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government. Bombora Wave Power is an award-winning ocean energy company committed to providing clean, renewable electricity.
Bombora has developed a membrane style wave energy converter called an ‘mWaveTM’. Located 10 meters beneath the ocean’s surface, similar to a fully submerged reef, it is invisible from the shoreline. As ocean waves pass over the mWave, the membranes deflect pumping air through a turbine to generate electricity. Electricity is directly transferred to shore via a submerged cable. The mWave is unique among wave energy converters as it simultaneously addresses the ‘cost of energy’ and ‘ocean wave survivability’ challenges. Bombora is currently completing a 1.5MW mWave product validation project in Pembrokeshire, Wales, with the support of the Welsh Government and a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant. Bombora is simultaneously developing a global pipeline of commercial wave farm projects.
