REH gives up on CETO and gets £30 million

First an apology to regular blog readers for the recent silence.

We're back.  

There's an interesting news story here that Renewable Energy Holdings (listed on the London Stock Exchange as REH), has sold its wave energy Intellectual Property rights to Carnegie for £30 million (in shares in Carnegie).

The CETO technology is among the more developed wave technologies, having spent some time in the water at largish scale in Australia, so this is an interesting value indication for other companies in the space which are looking to monetise their IP.   

Progress for Renewable Energy Holdings

This, from the Renewable Energy Holdings website today...

Second CETO II Wave Energy Unit deployed & Sites under review in EDF EN collaboration

Renewable Energy Holdings plc (AIM: REH), the AIM quoted investor and operator of proven and innovative renewable energy technologies, is pleased to announce the successful deployment of the second CETO II Wave Energy prototype off the CETO test site at Fremantle in Western Australia.

In short, the CETO technology appears to use wave motion captured at tethered buoys to pump high pressure seawater which is then used to spin a turbine onshore. It's a great idea to keep the electrics out of the water, but I do wonder what kind of hydraulic losses there are. This schematic helps to describe the CETO technology.

This and the ORECon news in the same week - maybe wave's picking up steam again. Let's hope Pelamis can get deployed soon too, to really get some momentum in the sector.

In the meantime, nice one REH and CETO - we'll keep eyes open for more news.