Eco Wave Power, an Israeli nearshore wave power startup, has announced its filing of a preliminary prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a contemplated $9 million IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Eco Wave Power is already listed on the Swedish stock exchange, and its preliminary prospectus states that each American Depositary Share (ADS) will be worth $10 to $12 – or 86 to 104 Swedish Krona.
CEO Inna Braverman co-founded Eco Wave Power (EWP) with David Leb in 2011, not long after the then 24-year-old had completed her BA in Political Science and English Literature. Since then she has made numerous appearances at various climate change conferences, in magazines, and at the Israeli Knesset. This week she appeared at the Qatar Economic Forum.
The company has made swift progress outside of publicity too – Braverman oversaw the commissioning of the Gibraltar Wave Project in 2016, having signed a 5 MW PPA with the Government of Gibraltar in 2014, although for now only the initial 100 kW has been built. While EWP is incorrect to claim that it’s the first ever or only grid-connected wave power station in the world, it is indeed one of the very earliest.
EWP has one other site operational, in Jaffa Port, Israel. This one has a license for expansion to 100 kW and for grid connection: EWP is expanding it in partnership with EDF, with whom it signed a Joint Venture agreement in 2019. This project received its energy conversion unit ten days ago.
The company boasts of a 325.7 MW pipeline worldwide, spread across Mexico, the UK, Cyprus, China, Vietnam, Australia, Bangladesh and Portugal – where it has recently appointed a Head of Operations, and is working on the licensing for a 20 MW project.
The question is how fast EWP can garner the necessary funding. Typically it has received only a few million dollars at a time in grants from Israel, EU NGOs, and so on, so this $9 million Nasdaq IPO will be a useful step. Its previous IPO, on the Swedish stock exchange Nasdaq First North in 2019, raised $13.6 million. At that time its pipeline was just 190 MW.
June has been a busy month for EWP with other money sources: it was accepted onto two Accelerator programs last week, namely the UK’s Cleantech Bootcamp 2021 and Spain’s Rising UP in Spain: EWP has already signed Letters of Intent with several of the largest ports in each country. And a fortnight ago it announced its participation in the 56-member data-gathering ILIAD Consortium, which was awarded $20 million by the EU.
One point in favour of EWP is it practicality – its technology is hydraulic systems each running off floaters which are a few meters cubed in scale. These are installed onto piers, seawalls, jetties and breakwaters in ports, to which the company only needs to add some structure with steel rebars and cement, to hold the floaters in place; and the power conversion units are simply located onshore.
Compared to a large-scale offshore wave power system this is more modular and far easier to install and access for maintenance, and the company claims an LCOE of $50 per MWh – though this is only forecast, it is not bad considering the consistency of waves compared to wind and solar. This small-scale design onshore is comparable to another wave power design we think has practical potential, which is small units built into offshore floating wind plants.