Hann-Ocean Energy (HOE) signed an agreement with Mr Robert A. Stone, the Singapore-based professional private investor, who commits to invest up to S$5.5m over the next two years in HOE. This is in addition to his earlier investment of S$1.25m since November 2012.

This investment will fund the research and development of a new 20kW WEC pilot project and the operational costs of the company for the next two years. The new WEC is designed so that individual turbine units can be clipped together to form a large hexagonal floating array that can potentially produce up to 500kW of electric power from ocean waves. The target market is primarily island communities which currently rely on costly diesel fuel for generation of electric power.

Hann-Ocean have received support from Singapore Government agencies such as Spring, A*Star and NTU in the development of this technology. This support has been an important factor in the development of Drakoo wave technology to date.