NoviOcean – Harnessing the Power of Waves Worldwide
NoviOcean is the company that elevates wave power to new powerful levels with a technical solution capable of lifting 600 tonnes, equivalent to the weight of 400 cars at once. In combination with wind and solar, this solution holds great potential. With a shared infrastructure offshore for these three types of energy, NoviOcean’s solution is both unique and cost-effective. The power of waves is consistent, unlike wind and solar. As these energy sources are strongest at different times of the day and year, it is optimal to combine them, thereby reducing the need for, for example, battery storage.
Today, NoviOcean has three different patents in about 20 countries where strong wave power exists, for example, in Alaska, Canada, Chile, Peru, Norway, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Germany, Morocco, Namibia, Mauritania, South Africa, Indonesia, China, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. Essentially, it involves two broad geographical belts north and south of the equator with significant potential for wave power.
Patents and Trade Secrets
– We keep control systems and data secret, but we patent the physical solutions, shares Jan Skjoldhammer, innovator and founder.
In the future, NoviOcean intends to license out the raft and cylinder, but certain intellectual assets, such as the turbine and advanced data, remain company secrets. This represents the strategy for the intellectual assets today.
NoviOcean was named for its ease of understanding in a global context and because it particularly suits the domain noviocean.energy
A Long Journey from Idea to Realisation
Behind the original idea and the company NoviOcean stands the pilot, officer, economist, and serial innovator Jan Skjoldhammer. The idea for the invention lay dormant for a long time. At 25, Jan sketched the solution, but a long and interesting career as an officer and pilot followed, meaning the innovation had to wait. As a pilot, Jan has followed the winds across the world, both with and against the wind, and with growing knowledge about how aviation fuel contributes to climate degradation, he wanted to do his part. It was high time to realise the idea of extracting energy from wave power.
Assistance from KTH, Chalmers, Uppsala, and University of Linné
After seven years of development work involving technology reviews, calculations, analyses, and real tests, the company now has a prototype showing consistent results across various validations. In the early stages of development, Jan Skjoldhammer reached out to Stefan Björklund at KTH, who engaged students and PhD candidates in the work. Over time, more than 50 students from KTH, Chalmers, Uppsala, and Linnaeus University have been involved in the calculations. Today, Stefan Björklund works at NoviOcean as a technical expert, and further analyses and tests have been conducted by a third-party company specializing in technical tests. Extensive real tests have been conducted in wave tanks in France and England, and over 16 months at sea in the Stockholm archipelago. All data from the various tests match and show consistent results. This fact is particularly interesting for investors, who assess the solution's potential as significant. A smaller prototype exists today off Svanholmen as a showcase for stakeholders.
For NoviOcean, the importance lies in their technical solution being a lightweight construction with minimal material usage, having few and simple parts, the components being well-tested, and environmentally sustainable. The requirement for the solution was that it had to be cost-effective while providing an immense amount of power.
The interview was made in 2024.