Wave Hub, the pioneering marine energy project in Cornwall, is forging closer links with the research community by hosting an academic from the Peninsula Research Institute for Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE).

Ian Ashton, an Associate Research Fellow with PRIMaRE, will be based in the Wave Hub office in Hayle on the north Cornwall coast for one day a week. Ian supervises the deployment, operation and data analysis of wave and current measurement instrumentation at and around the Wave Hub site, 10 miles offshore.

Wave Hub was installed last year and has created the world’s largest grid-connected test site for devices that generate electricity from the power of the waves.

PRIMaRE was set up by the universities of Exeter and Plymouth to accelerate growth in the marine renewable energy industry by addressing some of the most critical challenges it faces. It includes a team of international researchers and world-class facilities in South West England.

Guy Lavender, general manager at Wave hub, said: “We work closely with PRIMaRE across a number of research areas as part of what we can offer wave energy device developers, so we’re delighted to have Ian located in our office. By forging closer links between research and industry we can ensure that Wave Hub is an attractive location for the full-scale deployment of marine energy technology.”

Ian, from the University of Exeter Tremough Campus, said: “As the link between PRIMaRE and the Wave Hub team my role is to use our ongoing research to help respond to queries from the industry, and to help plan further research activities on site.”

Wave Hub consists of a giant ‘socket’ on the seabed connected to the national grid on shore by an underwater cable, into which wave energy devices can be ‘plugged’ and tested on a scale not seen anywhere before. The project has four berths available and a capacity of 20MW, equivalent to the electricity needs of more than 7,000 homes. Wave Hub’s first customer will be Ocean Power Technologies, deploying its PowerBuoy device.