A wave energy company has had its workforce slashed by over 70 percent after administrators enforced widespread redundancies. Pelamis Wave Power, widely recognised as the foremost wave energy technology company in the world, went into administration last Friday after failing to secure adequate funding to develop its technology.
Founded in 1998, Pelamis designs, manufactures and operates wave energy machines. The company had employed 56 staff across two sites in Edinburgh and Orkney. However, the administrators KPMG announced 40 redundancies, leaving 13 people working in the Edinburgh office, and just three at the site in Orkney. The remaining staff will continue to work with administrators, the Times has reported.
Blair Nimmo from KPMG said: “The financial situation of the business is such that we have had to take the difficult choice of making a large proportion of staff redundant. We will be working with the employees and the relevant government agencies to ensure that the full range of support is available to all those who are affected. We would like to thank the staff for their co-operation during this difficult period.
“We will do everything we can to seek a buyer who may be able to protect the business, its skilled workforce and see the continuation of the ground-breaking advances Pelamis has made towards renewable energy production.”
Just four days ago the Scottish energy minister Fergus Ewing announced plans to develop “Wave Energy Scotland”, a technology centre dedicated to research and development of wave energy. In a statement he said “With the extraordinary ocean energy resources off Scotland’s coasts, our belief in the future success of wave energy is undiminished.
“Now is the right time to consider the future of our support for wave energy in Scotland. This is a young industry, and we still have a lot of learning to do in marine renewables.”