One of the top 100 Irish American business executives in the U.S., Mr. John Hartnett, has joined the board of Wavebob Ltd. as a non-executive director.

A native of Limerick, Mr. Hartnett is based in Silicon Valley, California. He is CEO of G24 Innovations (www.g24i.com) and Chairman of the Irish Technology Leaders Group (www.itlg.org). His appointment brings a wealth of high-tech experience and considerable international profile to Maynooth-based company Wavebob Ltd. His career in high-tech to date boasts some of the industry’s leading companies such as Palm Inc, Handspring, Metacreations, Claris, AT&T, Digital Equipment and Wang. He has over 20 years of senior management experience across sales, marketing and operations in the U.S. and Ireland.

ESB International (ESBI) is to provide the Irish owned wave energy company, Wavebob, with specialist engineering expertise for the development of its wave energy converter over the next two years.

 As part of the contract, ESBI will work with Wavebob on the design of its first grid- connected device which is due to be installed in Portugal in 2011.
ESBI will also provide electrical engineering services to Wavebob in the design, manufacture, testing and commissioning of medium and low voltage equipment on the Wavebob device.
Technical support in areas such as environmental assessment, grid connection and performance validation will also form part of the contract. The agreement will run initially over two years with an option to extend.

Vattenfall has acquired 51 % of the Irish site development company for ocean energy, Pandion Ltd, for EUR 500,000 (around SEK 5 million). The ocean energy developer Wavebob Ltd will hold the remaining 49 % of Pandion and the agreement brings opportunities for further partners to participate.

Pandion has applied for ocean energy sites on the west coast of Ireland, which will be developed for demonstration to a commercial size, over 250 MW electricity, when it is technically and economically viable. For Vattenfall the investment in Pandion is a first step towards a leading position on the emerging ocean energy market, fully in line with its planned investments in sustainable energy solutions. “Ocean energy has large potential to contribute to the implementation of Vattenfall’s climate vision to be climate neutral by 2050. It is important for us to reach our growth targets, which are based on renewables, nuclear power and coal with CCS technology,” says Lars G Josefsson, President and CEO of Vattenfall.

World leaders in wave energy development, Wavebob Ltd., has won the Green Innovation Award at today’s Green Awards 2008, which were announced at a gala ceremony in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin .

The Green Innovation Award recognizes the work of a company that has made a significant contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Wavebob Ltd. Was founded by physicist William Dick in 1999 and has invested over €4m in Research & Development of their prototype wave energy converter, the Wavebob.  Wavebob Ltd. became the first Irish company and one of only a handful worldwide to successfully generate electricity from ocean waves just over a year ago.  It is now recognized internationally as one of the world's leading wave energy companies. Headquartered in Maynooth, Co. Kildare, with offices in the UK and the US, Wavebob Ltd. are developing their technology through an Open Innovation model of external partners. Current research partners include Vattenfall AB, one of Europe’s largest power companies, Chevron Ltd., the US Navy and NUI Maynooth.