BioPower Systems has just announced that it will form a business alliance with the large Chinese industrial organisation, Shanghai Electric Power Generation Group.
After six years of research and development and a total of $10.6 million of funding from the Australian Government and the Victorian Government, BioPower Systems is set to begin constructing its pilot demonstration project just off the coast of Port Fairy, Victoria in 2013.
Shanghai Electric is only going to act as an observer for the pilot demonstration. After that is completed it will then take an active role in the development and commercialisation of the bioWAVE ocean wave energy system.
Dr. Timothy Finnigan, the CEO of BioPower Systems, explained that "it will be necessary for ocean energy systems to be both substantial in scale and technically sophisticated, in order to become cost competitive."
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"This alliance, between BioPower Systems and what is one of the largest diversified equipment manufacturing groups in China, intends to enable development of the bioWAVE to a commercial stage within a reasonable time frame."
BioPower Systems hope that with the help of Shanghai Electric it will be able to successfully launch a new 1MW commercial scale bioWAVE unit.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More