[A CETO Wave Energy Unit | Western Australia]
On 3rd August Carnegie Wave announced a $4.3m (£2m) grant awarded by the Scottish Government for the development of a wave energy power conversion system.
This latest funding commitment is important for many reasons but, perhaps most significantly, it demonstrates a growing confidence in the technology's potential from overseas.
Carnegie's CETO technology has been in development since 1999 and is currently taking its first steps towards operating at full commercial scale. It's innovative, flexible and inspiring - as well as being zero-carbon. It is also starting to pick up a growing list of well-deserved awards.
By any standards it's already an innovation success story. It should be one of the standout examples of the type of role Australia could play in developing solutions for the climate challenge. Australians should be rightly proud of the achievements of this world-leading cleantech company and it should be inspiring a host of other innovators to make Australia their base for cleantech development.
Yet hardly anyone in Australia seems to have heard of them. Whenever I talk about them - even with those in the cleantech and sustainability sectors - more often than not I am met with "Who?"
In other countries a company that is forging ahead with such a ground-breaking technology would be rightly celebrated and lauded for their achievements. Instead there seems to be an impressive wall of silence from the majority of the press in Australia.
Perhaps Carnegie Wave needs to work on their media outreach (looking at their website, I doubt that somehow). More likely the Australian media needs to stop looking askance at everything renewable and start celebrating the companies that are good for business, society and the environment.
Because we're going to need a lot more like Carnegie Wave in the future.
UPDATE: On 18 August Carnegie was named one of Business Review Weekly's (BRW) Most Innovative Companies. Hopefully I am about to be proved wrong as this leading cleantech company starts to get the recognition in Australia it deserves.
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