Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Off-Grid Market Opportunities for Wave Power Technology

Nilsson, Henrik (2016) MIO920
Production Management
Abstract
The long-term objective within the wave energy industry is to deliver large-scale
wave energy farms connected to large national power grids. However, this
objective cannot be reached with today’s wave energy technologies at their
current maturity levels. This has created a need within the industry to identify
alternative development paths—in this thesis referred to as off-grid market
opportunities—that will generate revenue along the way, thus enabling R&D
efforts to be financed by revenue rather than external investments.
The purpose of this research has been to investigate the intersection between the
off-grid market and wave power technology, and to analyze and evaluate the
attractiveness of the identified market opportunities.... (More)
The long-term objective within the wave energy industry is to deliver large-scale
wave energy farms connected to large national power grids. However, this
objective cannot be reached with today’s wave energy technologies at their
current maturity levels. This has created a need within the industry to identify
alternative development paths—in this thesis referred to as off-grid market
opportunities—that will generate revenue along the way, thus enabling R&D
efforts to be financed by revenue rather than external investments.
The purpose of this research has been to investigate the intersection between the
off-grid market and wave power technology, and to analyze and evaluate the
attractiveness of the identified market opportunities.
The project has been configured as a qualitative, exploratory case study using the
case of CorPower Ocean and their wave energy converter technology as the point
of reference. A strong market perspective has permeated the entire study and
technical aspects has only been considered to a limited extent.
The research resulted in that eight distinct market segments were identified:
ancillary, defense and security, direct to product, leisure and recreational, ocean
observing and measurement, portable generation equipment, power grids, and
various applications. Each segment was evaluated based on four different aspects:
size and growth, structural attractiveness, alignment with internal resources and
capabilities, and alignment with internal objectives. This resulted in that the
ancillary, direct to product, and power grid segments were considered to be the
most promising and two sub-segments within the power grid segment, i.e. micro
grids and resorts, were chosen for an in-depth analysis. This analysis confirmed
that the micro grid and resort sub-segments do represent several attractive and
viable off-grid market opportunities for CorPower Ocean. Consequently, two
ideal market scenarios were presented to be used as guidelines during early stages
of market introduction. Additionally, a step-based approach for opportunity
assessment was developed and used to structure the in-depth analysis. This
approach was found to be very effective for the specific purposes of this research,
but it is also considered to have universal applicability and it is recommended
that it should be further tested and evaluated in future research. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Nilsson, Henrik
supervisor
organization
course
MIO920
year
type
M1 - University Diploma
subject
keywords
CorPower Ocean, market opportunities, micro grids, off-grid, resorts, wave energy converters, wave power.
other publication id
16/5543
language
English
id
8892284
date added to LUP
2016-09-22 15:36:22
date last changed
2016-09-22 15:36:22
@misc{8892284,
  abstract     = {{The long-term objective within the wave energy industry is to deliver large-scale
wave energy farms connected to large national power grids. However, this
objective cannot be reached with today’s wave energy technologies at their
current maturity levels. This has created a need within the industry to identify
alternative development paths—in this thesis referred to as off-grid market
opportunities—that will generate revenue along the way, thus enabling R&D
efforts to be financed by revenue rather than external investments.
The purpose of this research has been to investigate the intersection between the
off-grid market and wave power technology, and to analyze and evaluate the
attractiveness of the identified market opportunities.
The project has been configured as a qualitative, exploratory case study using the
case of CorPower Ocean and their wave energy converter technology as the point
of reference. A strong market perspective has permeated the entire study and
technical aspects has only been considered to a limited extent.
The research resulted in that eight distinct market segments were identified:
ancillary, defense and security, direct to product, leisure and recreational, ocean
observing and measurement, portable generation equipment, power grids, and
various applications. Each segment was evaluated based on four different aspects:
size and growth, structural attractiveness, alignment with internal resources and
capabilities, and alignment with internal objectives. This resulted in that the
ancillary, direct to product, and power grid segments were considered to be the
most promising and two sub-segments within the power grid segment, i.e. micro
grids and resorts, were chosen for an in-depth analysis. This analysis confirmed
that the micro grid and resort sub-segments do represent several attractive and
viable off-grid market opportunities for CorPower Ocean. Consequently, two
ideal market scenarios were presented to be used as guidelines during early stages
of market introduction. Additionally, a step-based approach for opportunity
assessment was developed and used to structure the in-depth analysis. This
approach was found to be very effective for the specific purposes of this research,
but it is also considered to have universal applicability and it is recommended
that it should be further tested and evaluated in future research.}},
  author       = {{Nilsson, Henrik}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Off-Grid Market Opportunities for Wave Power Technology}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}