Ocean Power says device off Japan shows excellent performance

New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies (NASDAQ:OPTT) said on Monday that the PB3 commercial PowerBuoy it deployed off Kozu-Island in Japan is so far meeting all of its performance requirements.

Since April 17, when it was deployed, the ocean wave energy device has produced over 471 kWh of electricity in total, and achieved a single day peak generation above 24 kWh.

George Kirby, the company’s president and CEO, expressed his satisfaction with “the excellent performance” of the PB3 unit. “We believe this performance further validates the commercial maturity of our PB3 and demonstrates OPT’s ability to address applications in our target markets such as ocean observing, oil and gas, security and defense, and communications," he said in a statement.

Under the terms of a lease agreement with Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding (MES), the device will be deployed off Kozu-Island for a period of six months, with the possibility of extension.

“The PTO [Power Take-Off] accelerated life testing has continued reaching a cumulative number of strokes over the fleet of PTOs, of over 67 million, which simulates a cumulative ocean-operation-duration of over 4 years," added Mike Mekhiche, OPT's Executive Vice President of Engineering and Operations. The PTO accelerated life testing is conducted at the company’s headquarters in New Jersey.

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