WAVE POWER:Ireland is blessed with what is potentially one of the richest energy sources in the world - the sea; unfortunately, we have yet to come up with a way of comprehensively exploiting it.

Energy Minister Eamon Ryan this week gave it a vote of confidence by announcing a €5.5 million package to support the development of technology that will produce electricity from marine resources.

From an investor's point of view this should give the game away. We still have some time to wait before a commercially viable device is produced.

Andrew Parish, chief executive of Wavebob, one of two Irish companies that have come up with prototypes that demonstrably generate electricity, says "the reality is that nobody has a commercial product at this stage".

Both Wavebob and Cork-based Ocean Energy have jumped the first few hurdles in this regard. According to John Keating, director of the latter company, it could have a commercial system in place as early as next year.

The two firms are testing their technologies off the west coast, where, thanks to the north Atlantic and the Gulf Stream, they have polenty of raw material to work with in terms of waves.

Wavebob last year joined forces with global energy giant, Chevron, which is helping to fund its project. It has spent about €800,000, and is reportedly prepared to put up more cash. If the Irish company makes the breakthrough, the multinational is likely to end up as a customer.

Keating told The Irish Times last year that Ocean Energy has had similar approaches but its principals - himself and fellow businessmen Michael Whelan and John McCarthy - felt that the time was not right.

They have put about €1 million of their own money into the project, and are adamant that if their gamble pays off, most of the economic benefits should be kept in this State in the shape of investment and jobs.

Parish says that there are two key markets for these systems, should they turn out to be viable. The first is clearly the Irish electricity market; the second is offshore exploration and drilling facilities, which have to generate their own power as they are not close enough to electricity plants and national grids.

There are still a lot of very big ifs involved in this, but should either or both systems turn out to be viable, the State is committed to providing backers with a very healthy insurance package.

The Minister said the Government was prepared to guarantee that wave-produced power will get €220 per megawatt hour when it is sold into the national grid - four times the tariff paid for onshore wind.

Parish says wave power is at roughly the same stage of development as wind energy was 10 to 12 years ago. This month's €1.87 billion sale of Irish wind generator Airtricity repaid its investors heavily, with some more than doubling their money.

Getting in on the ground floor could be a good move, but it's likely that anyone investing in the sea will have a long wait before getting their pay off.

Still, with estimates of a global market potentially worth €200 billion, it could be a very big payoff indeed.