
The Scot-Govt. has had to write-off more than £40 million in taxpayer funding in two prominent corporate casualties in the home-grown wave energy sector.
Through its Scottish Enterprise and Highland Enterprise job-creation quangos, the government sunk £17.2 million into Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Ltd, alongside another £9.4 million in direct funding from the UK and Scots governments.
Scottish Enterprise also lost another £16.3 million after another Pelamis – another Edinburgh-based ocean energy developer – sank into administration in 2014.
Shortly afterwards, the Scottish Government set up a new directly funded wave energy quango with an additional tax-payer financed budget of some £13 million a year.