We asked female leaders, who will be speaking at our summit in 2021, to share their personal thoughts on the challenges, opportunities and new perspectives they have personally encountered as they navigate through the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This special series should inspire and encourage you to continue to manage the crisis in the best possible way. This is where Inna Braverman, who has dedicated herself to renewable energies like no other, has her say.
Inna, technology entrepreneur, is using the power of the waves to create clean electricity. She founded Eco Wave Power in 2011, at the age of 24, and recently chosen as one of the 100 most influential individuals in the world by medium.com (along with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and others). With her leadership, Eco Wave Power installed the first grid connected wave energy array in Gibraltar, where Eco Wave Power is connected to the grid of the Gibraltar Electric Authority through a Power Purchase Agreement. She is also responsible for securing 190MW of projects pipe-line for the company. Eco Wave Power is the first Israeli Company that ever went public on Nasdaq Stockholm.
For Inna, clean electricity is a very personal journey, as she was born 2 weeks prior to the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, and suffered respiratory arrest due to the pollution in the region. She got a second chance in life and decided to devote it for mitigating pollution. Besides notable awards most recently, Inna was awarded the United Nations “Global Climate Action Award” in the category of “Women for Results”, during COP25 in Madrid.
Challenges and the Navigation through such challenges
The pandemic has presented a number of challenges for all businesses around the world, as it created an unusual global situation with many travel restrictions and quarantine rules which affected, and are still affecting, the ability of companies to conduct business as usual.
Eco Wave Power was fast to respond to this newly created situation, by coming up with a clear and responsible plan, which at its’ core, maintains the safety of our employees, while achieving the operational targets of the company. The plan (called EPIC-M) includes five main components:
Efficient remote operation of our Gibraltar power plant
Progressing projects which are under construction (EWP-EDF One project)
Increasing pipeline projects intake
Creating trust among our shareholders, while improving brand awareness
Minimizing expenses
Efficient remote operation of our Gibraltar power plant
In order to take care of the safety of our employees and adjust to the new situation, we have changed our ways of working and for the time being, we no longer send staff to Gibraltar and other locations in our pipeline. Nevertheless, our Gibraltar power plant has continued operation and is being monitored by Juan, our local power plant manager, with ongoing online support from our engineering team in the office. In addition, measures have been taken to insure all employees can work remotely and are equipped with proper tools necessary to attend remote meetings. Also, new sales and BD strategies were implemented and explained to all BD and marketing employees, to enable quick adjustment to the new situation, while finalizing new deals remotely.
Progressing projects which are under construction (EWP-EDF One project)
In parallel, works continued with the goal of getting the second power plant started. The EWP-EDF One project in Jaffa Port, Israel, has moved forward. In a significant regulatory milestone, we have announced that we secured the engineering coordination permit from the Municipality of Tel-Aviv Jaffa (permit number 2020-4345) needed for the deployment of the grid connection works of the EWP-EDF One wave energy project in the Port of Jaffa, Israel. The permit allows us to proceed with the path towards electric cable laying works, for the electric transmission cables that will connect the EWP-EDF One Jaffa Port project, with the IEC (Israel Electric Company) sub-station.
Increasing pipeline projects intake
In the same time, as part of our planning for the future, we have secured new sites, which are interested in the Eco Wave Power technology. Our overall projects pipeline have increased to 254MW, including a newly entered Concession Agreement for an up to 20MW with APDL in Portugal, and two new Letters of Intent, which include a 2MW LOI with the Port of Shoreham in the UK and an LOI with Diamond Energy for an up to 20MW PPA in Australia. This progress was made possible due to the newly implemented BD and sales strategies, as well as since our technology and company have attracted a great deal of attention across the globe. Our technology was recognized by the Energy Globe Award, while I was extremely honored to be recognized by the European Commission as one of the Women Innovators for 2020 and selected by Fast Company as one of the world’s 74 “Most Creative People in Business for 2020”, for founding Eco Wave Power. According to Fast Company, “Engineers have been trying to make ocean waves a source of energy for decades. Her Company finally figured out how”. Sifted.eu also recognized us as one of the “European tech pioneers shaping the post-pandemic world”.
This emphasizes that there is a great support for what we want to achieve, and many are interested in helping us realize commercial scale wave energy power plants.
Inna Braverman, Founder & CEO, Eco Wave Power, Israel
Creating trust among our shareholders, while improving brand awareness
Another very important aspect for us during this pandemic specifically, but also in general, is to reassure our shareholders that we are taking all appropriate measures to meet our operational targets, in a clear and responsible way. As a result, we have also come up with a new communication plan, which is expected to improve our brand awareness, while establishing better communication channels with our existent and new shareholders, which we value significantly. One of the items of such a plan was changing the company’s ticker symbol on Nasdaq First North to “ECOWVE”. This new symbol is expected to be easier to find, while clearly more appropriately reflecting the Eco Wave Power brand. We have also launched a monthly newsletter and started a policy of frequent updates to our shareholders and the market, via press releases and other means available to us. We hope that this will reinforce the connection between us and our shareholders, while aligning our operational steps with understanding from the market.
Minimizing expenses
The last step of our plan is financial. Although our company has sufficient capital and financial resources, the consequences of the Corona virus are still hard to grasp, and everything indicates that this might be a lengthy process. As a result, to ensure our long-term financial situation, we reviewed our costs, and were able to reduce some of our expenses during this time period.
Challenges and opportunities accelerate developments for renewable energies
Overall, I am feeling quite optimistic regarding the situation due to the launching of strong innovative initiatives globally, to get out of this crisis in a green way. It seems that it is becoming clearer than ever that renewable energy (and wave energy in particular) is a significant part of handling the climate crisis, while also being a significant part of the solution to the global economic crisis that Covid-19 has created.
According to a study by the European Technology & Innovation Platform for Ocean Energy, which was published on May 2020: “Europe’s ocean energy resource is considerable. By 2050, ocean energy can deliver 100GW of capacity- equivalent to 10% of Europe’s electricity consumption today. Flexible and predictable, ocean energy complements variable renewables such as wind or solar, that will dominate Europe’s electricity system in 2050. Ocean energy will play an important role in smoothing production peaks and balancing Europe’s electricity grid. By 2050, the ocean energy sector will employ 400,000 Europeans, ensuring a just transition to a decarbonized economy. Europe’s technological advantage in ocean energy will ensure European companies a large share of a strong global market, as they do on offshore wind. With zero carbon emissions, ocean energy will help tackle climate change and achieve a cleaner, more sustainable and more prosperous Europe”.
