The South West Regional Development Agency's Wave Hub project lost one of its four developer companies this week (29th April) as E.ON, and its partner Ocean Prospect, announced that they were going to use the testing facilities at EMEC in Scotland. In part the move was because of delays in getting the Wave Hub commissioned. Dave Rogers, Regional Director of Renewables for E.ON, said: "Our aim is to concentrate on testing our Pelamis device, which means that it was unlikely we'd be in a position to connect to Wave Hub in the short term."

Rogers continued:  "We still believe Wave Hub is an excellent project - and we may well return to it in the future - but our initial goal is to get a machine into the water as quickly as possible, which we'll be able to do in Orkney."

The project still has three developers committed to it; Orecon, Ocean Power Technologies Limited and Fred Olsen Limited each of which will be granted a lease of a sea area of two square kilometres to trial systems.

Nick Harington, Head of Marine Energy at the South West RDA (Regional Development Agency), which is developing Wave Hub, said: "It's entirely understandable that E.ON wants to test a single next generation device at the European Marine Energy Centre rather than an array of devices which is what wave hub is designed for. We wish them well and hope to welcome them back in the near future.

"Wave Hub is on course to be built and commissioned next year. We are currently in detailed negotiations with three wave device developers and look forward to the first device being deployed at Wave Hub in 2011."