Development of a New Technology of Wave Energy Converter (WEC) System to Produce Green Hydrogen

Turning Wave Energy into affordable and clean fuel

Portugal

About Us
Established in 2021, Wave To Energy TM aspires to produce and store green hydrogen offshore. We developed and patented a state-of-the-art high efficiency Wave Energy Converter (WEC) system. The co-founders, Kourosh Rezanejad and Marzieh Hashemzadeh, developed the concepts of this new technology during a decade of their PhD and post-doctoral research activities in prestigious EU universities to turn WECs into economically viable solutions. The co-founders embarked on an entrepreneurial journey and they continued to develop a prototype, expand their technical team, hired a CFO and COO with expertise in operations, business development and finance. Wave To Energy was recently approved for an EU grant to further develop this innovative technology. The company was recognized by F6S.com as one of the top eight renewable energy startups in Lisbon in 2022 and was selected as top ten hot Renewable Energy Startups in the World in 2023 (https://www.startus-insights.com/innovators-guide/renewable-energy-startups-to-watch/).
This startup is established by the following two founders that dedicate their full time to develop the company:
1. Marzieh Hashemzadeh (CEO and Co-Founder): PhD MSc in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. She got her PhD degree from the prestigious Portuguese top ranked university (Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon). She is senior R&D engineer/researcher in the field of structural analysis and construction technology. She has experience working in the project management team as project deputy manager as well as deputy engineering coordinator. She has wide experiences on project management in the shipyards which allows her to coordinate the construction process of floating structures, specifically in the design, technology development, QC and QA control, testing, deployment, procurement and storing materials and tools. Marzieh is an award winning woman in tech with a strong gender equality attitude in the renewable energy and clean-tech sector. Within the last 8 years, Marzieh has raised over 500k EUR of funds from public and private sectors. Also, she has been involved in the hiring process of over 30 engineers for various marine technology companies and research centers. She has a strong network of talented human resources and consultancy corporates in the field.
2. Kourosh Rezanejad (CTO and Co-Founder): PhD MSc in the field of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. He got his PhD degree from the prestigious Portuguese top ranked university (Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon). He is the inventor of the Floating Dual Chamber Oscillating Water Column (OWC) Wave Energy Converter (WEC) device as the main IP asset of the company. He has been exclusively focused on R&D activities on Wave Energy Converters in the last ten years to improve their design to make them economically viable. He was involved in four European projects, as coordinator and senior researcher, to promote the application of Wave Energy Converter (WEC). Thus, he has developed a strong knowledge base on renewable energy generation, transmission, storage, as well as development of the EU Green Hydrogen hubs. Kourosh is an award-winning researcher and inventor with outstanding outcomes from his R&D research in terms of prototypes, patents, +30 top rank journal papers, and books. He has +10 years of experience as senior consultant engineer working directly with large marine and renewable energy corporates.

Problem we are solving
Our product is a Wave Energy Converter (WEC) system that captures energy of waves and converts it into electricity. The generated electricity is used to produce Green Hydrogen from the sea water. Our product serves as a nearshore or offshore floating clean fuel station for the next generation of zero emission short to medium range vessels. Incumbent shipping companies like Maersk Line already unveiled plans of investment on a new generation of clean fuel zero emission vessels by 2025. Furthermore, the major marine regulatory, International Maritime Organization (IMO), requires the entire maritime sector (transporting 90% of goods in the globe) to cut Green-house gas (GHG) emissions by at least 50% by 2050 thereby creating a considerable and promising market for maritime clean fuel. We aspire to be a leading player in the supply chain of providing clean fuel for next generation of ships by using our innovative technology.

Sustainable Impact on Blue Ecconomy
Our product is the outcome of doing more than a decade of R&D activities (during the PhD and Postdoctoral studies of our CTO & CEO) to improve the performance of Wave Energy Converters and (consequently) make them commercially viable. The main barrier for adoption of the existing Wave Energy Converters in the market is their low performance that leads to high energy production costs. Here, our product has following two competitive advantages:
1- Our solution is the only product in the market which has the capability of producing and storing Hydrogen onboard of itself (due to its specific geometrical design and configuration of internal tanks). Hence, our product is the only product that can act like a floating clean fuel station for the next generation of ships. Moreover, the need to use underwater cables to transmit the generated energy is eliminated that further reduces the energy production costs.
2- Our Wave Energy Converter technology can generate electricity by using the power of ocean waves with the Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) less than 0.14 €/KWh based on a 2023 estimate. From our investigations less Wave Energy Converter technologies exists in the market that has such a capability. Hence, our product is the only Wave Energy Converter concept that can produce green Hydrogen at an affordable price to be used as the clean fuel for ships. In this context, the proof of concept developed in the laboratory environment demonstrated exceptional high performance in terms of capturing energy of waves. The proof of concept were assessed and verified by independent academic experts and led to multiple high impact articles in international and prestigious journals. Therefore, the commercial product reaches a promising low Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE).

Financial Needs250.000-300.000€.
Note: Currently, we are looking for an investment partner to cover 50% costs of a European project. The project proposal has been submitted for a funding call announced by the Eurogia association (https://eurogia.eu/). This funding call has two stages. The project proposal has been approved in the first stage and project partners are going to apply for the second stage of the call which will be announced on Nov. 2023. Eight partners (one university, two large companies and five SMEs) across the EU are going to collaborate in this project. The overall budget of the project is around 4.4 Million € and the associated budget for the Wave To Energy company is around 540,000 €. The Portuguese government will finance 50% of the project costs in the form of grants. So, we are looking for a partner who can provide the supplementary part of the project budget (around 270,000 €). The investment partner might acquire a certain portion of the shares of the Wave To Energy company in exchange of the capital they invested in (Equity financing).