A full scale demonstrator of the Oyster was placed on the seabed last month at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, off the north coast of the Scottish mainland.
Subsea pipelines are being installed, using directional drilling in the seabed, to link the 194 tonne converter to shore. In operation, the system will feed high pressure water to the turbine. Generation tests are planned for later this year.
In total, Aquamarine needs approximately £50M (US$81.6M) to develop the system to the commercial stage, expected by 2014. A second funding round is to start soon.
The company has a deal with Airtricity to use clusters of Oyster systems with up to 1GW of capacity by 2020.
