Wave power firm Embley Energy has just secured £150,000 in funding from the Carbon Trust as it continues development work on the innovative floating concrete that underpins its Sperboy wave energy converter.

The investment will be used on a new project designed to prove the economic and technical viability of the new technology when compared to fossil fuels and other renewable energy sources.

Experts have long argued that wave energy could provide more reliable power than other forms of renewable energy such as wind, while the UK's long coastline means it could meet a huge proportion of the country's energy needs. A recent Carbon Trust study estimated as much as a fifth of the country's electricity could be generated by wave power.

However, the technology has struggled to prove its viability with concerns over cost and the difficulty of maintenance hampering its adoption.

However, now Bristol-based Embley thinks it may have found a solution to many of wave powers problems in the form of a new "oscillating water column" buoy that it claims can generate reliable energy at low cost.

The buoy works by moving with the waves and forcing displaced air within the buoy to drive turbine generators.

But while this approach is not new where the design is interesting is in the use of advanced laminated floating concrete and a configuration that ensures that the moving parts are above the waterline. As a result the buoys are estimated to have a life of 40 years and require minimal maintenance, drastically reducing the running costs.

"The use of concrete for the main vessel will considerably increase the working life of the wave-energy converter and our design should deliver energy at a cost to compete with traditional forms of energy production," said Embley's Michael Burrett.

The company will now invest the Carbon Trust funding in a two year development programme that will see it run a series of water tank trials that will help it prove the viability of the floating concrete structure.

Embley said the research would move it closer to its goal of attaining commercial production by 2015, at which point the Sperboy technology could be deployed in large wave farms with 750 buoys spread over 15 square kilometres.

Wave and tidal energy is currently seeing a surge of investor interest ahead of expected changes to the government's renewable obligations legislation that will see generators of wave and tidal power receive more money for the energy they generate through the government's renewable obligations certifictes (ROCs) subsidy mechanism than wind and other forms of renewable energy providers.

Speaking to BusinessGreen earlier this year, Martin Gibson of venture capitalists Atlas Ventures predicted the marine renewable energy was on the verge of a major breakthrough as technologies mature and the government signals it is willing to support the sector.

"What is interesting is that the regions where this technology is necessarily developed, like the South West, Western Scotland and Northern Spain, are areas with a great engineering heritage through ship building or mining that have been under-exploited in recent years," he added. "There is a lot of untapped engineering talent out there."