Lowestoft-based business Scour Prevention Systems Ltd (SPSL) was shortlisted as one of eight companies to present in Ultralight Startups Online Investor Challenge, where they presented their innovative Scour Prevention Mats to a panel of investors from around the world.
Supported by the Shell Game Changer Programme, this high profile event featured eight early-stage energy and cleantech startups. SPSL showcased their technology to the panel and an online audience over three days via a video, online presentation and Q&A session. The investment panel included representatives from UK based organisations GROW:Offshore Wind, OrbisEnergy, and the newly established Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult Centre.
John Balch, Executive Chairman at Scour Prevention Systems , said: “This was an exciting opportunity to participate in a high-profile, international investment pitch, and we hope to secure investment to jumpstart our ambition to become the leading commercial provider of scour protection to the offshore renewables industry.”
Last year the company successfully completed offshore demonstrations of their innovative scour solution on E.On’s Scroby Sands Wind Farm off the Norfolk coast. The Scour Prevention Mats are now commercially available to the global offshore market.
If successful, the investment won from the event will provide a significant boost to SPSL’s drive to apply their field proven technology for a broad range of applications for offshore wind, wave and tidal energy devices and their associated cables and infrastructure.
Graham Lawlor, founder of Ultralight Startups , said: “We were delighted to have Scour Prevention Systems as one of the shortlisted candidates for our online investor challenge. We hope they benefit from exposure to our high profile network of investors and sponsors, and wish them luck in successfully securing the investment they seek.”
The company, based at the OrbisEnergy innovation centre, who are supporting the investor challenge, has developed a novel and patented solution to remediate and eliminate scour around offshore structures and over cables, which is recognised as a significant problem across the offshore and subsea industries.
The Scour Prevention Mats consist of a matrix of end-of-life vehicle tyres which stabilise the seabed to stop scour. Scour is caused by the flow of water speeding up around an object, causing a hole to form in the seabed around the object’s base, which gets progressively deeper. If left unchecked, this can affect a structure’s integrity and damage its foundations.
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Press Release, March 20, 2014