Canadian power company Emera has taken a stake in marine energy developer Openhydro, in a deal valuing the Irish company at €145 million.
In another example of the high values pinned on alternative energy players, Emera has paid €10.2 million ($15 million Canadian dollars) for a 7 per cent stake in Openhydro.
Emera is one of Canada's biggest power companies and last year earned record profits of $151 million Canadian dollars.
The sale puts a total price tag of €145.7 million on Openhydro. It also values the 11 per cent stake in the company held by One51, the investment vehicle run by former IAWS boss Philip Lynch, at just over €16 million.
Openhydro is developing a system for generating electricity from tidal streams, which involves using currents on the sea bed to drive turbines which then generate power.
It is testing its turbine-based system at a designated site for these activities close to Orkney in Scotland. It develops and assembles its turbines at a site in Greenore, Co Louth.
It does not produce electricity commercially.
Its chief executive is engineer James Ives, who previously worked for Mercedes Benz and Ferrari. Businessman and property investor Brendan Gilmore chairs the company.
The company began operating in 2004 after it bought the rights to its open centre turbine system, which had been developed over a nine-year period in the US.
Since 2005, it has raised €50 million in two rounds from investors, largely private individuals, to fund the commercial development of its turbines. It raised €40 million last October in a placement organised by Davy.
