Memorial University’s Genesis Centre is a business incubator that helps enhance and accelerate the launch of impressive new local businesses, that contribute much to the economic diversification and future of NL. It was announced this week that both the Federal and Provincial government committed to another hefty round of 7-digit investment to the Genesis Centre, so every day this Week, The Overcast will profile, at random, a local, Genesis-assisted business helping to lead our province into the future.

Profile 2: Grey Island Energy

You’ve heard of clean energy from wind, the sun, waterfalls, and so on, but what about harnessing the vast power of the ocean that surrounds us? Well, that’s what Grey Island Energy do. In their own words, wave energy is “a concentrated form of solar and wind energy.” Surface waves act as a natural storage of wind energy, that is generated by the differential heating of the earth.

“Ocean waves are predictable, reliable, and 800 times denser than wind. Yet this remains an untapped resource. We are a group of award-winning entrepreneurs, project managers, and engineering designers and we have spent years turning this dissatisfaction into an environmental and economic opportunity.”

Dissatisfied with the cost and environmental damage associated with burning dirty carbon based fuels to generate electricity, Grey Island Energy started developing a proprietary ocean wave energy system called the SeaWEED™ (Sea Wave Energy Extraction Device) to harness the immense power in the ocean’s constant waves.

Grey Island Energy was incorporated in 2009 to research and develop a cost effective and efficient ocean wave energy system, and are currently pioneering their proprietary wave energy extraction device for commercialization around the world.

Their SeaWEED technology is anchored to the ocean floor, much like a ship, and it “generates electricity by floating on the surface of the ocean and riding over the rising and falling motion of waves. As the device rides over the crests and into troughs of the waves, energy is captured and transferred from the wave to hydraulic rams located on the device.

“This energy is then converted into clean renewable electricity using onboard electrical generators and transmitted to shore via industry standard subsea electrical cables.”

Where did the company name come from? “Prior to government-driven resettlement, residents of the Grey Islands exemplified sustainable living practices by meeting socio-economic needs through farming and fishing.”

Our province’s economy might be in the gutter right now, but it’s not because of a lack of bright-minded, forward-thinking entrepreneurs like Brian Lundrigan – Chief Technical Officer of Grey Island Energy.