Royal Inauguration of Waves4Power

Together with a 10-year old from the area, His Majesty King Harald of Norway attended the official inauguration of Waves4Power’s wave power system on Thursday, 21 September.

It was a festive occasion in Fosnavåg on the Norwegian west coast when His Majesty King Harald opened the wave power system together with Arthur Pettersson-Kieffer, the winner of the drawing contest, the subject of which was the future wave power system. Arthur from Ulsteinvik won the contest in competition with pupils from 12 other Norwegian schools.

Seaflex was invited to attend the festivities as a key strategic partner in the venture. More than 2,000 people were present at the inauguration, which marked the high point of the day when the focus was on wave power and Waves4Power.

During his visit, His Majesty King Harald met Waves4Power’s management and many of their partners as well as visiting Wave4Power’s buoy at the Runde, the island bird sanctuary. The buoy has been connected to the Norwegian electricity grid since 2 June this year. The king was taken out to the buoy on the RS Idar Ulstein, the Norwegian Sea Rescue Society newest boat. His Majesty, who is the society’s patron, was given information about the project by Jan Melsom and Bengt Mårlind from Waves4Power.

“His Majesty was both interested and updated. He asked a lot of good questions. Showing his Majesty our wave power system was a great honour”, said Jan Melsom, Waves4Power’s Norwegian representative.

His Majesty was also given presentations of Waves4Power and several of its partners during a conference in the concert hall at Thon Hotel, Fosnavåg. The plans for the Next Generation buoy were also presented during the conference.
Also present were many of the Norwegian environmental organisations and a large number of reporters.

The day ended with a banquet for His Majesty King Harald and the more than 100 guests, consisting of representatives from many different countries including Japan, USA, Austria, the Netherlands, the UK, Norway and Sweden.

Seaflex was chosen as a strategic partner for Waves4Power in 2014 because of the unique characteristics of the SEAFLEX elastic mooring system, and will be a participating partner during the entire project. Other strategic partners include Siemens, Petronas and NKT cables.