Trevor Whittaker FREng is Professor of coastal engineering at Queen's University, Belfast having been awarded a personal chair in 1993. He was elected a Fellow of The

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

in 2002. He is specialist adviser to the board of Aquamarine Power, a company formed to commercially develop the

Oyster wave energy converter The Oyster is a hydro-electric wave energy device that uses the motion of ocean waves to generate electricity. It is made up of a Power Connector Frame (PCF), which is bolted to the seabed, and a Power Capture Unit (PCU). The PCU is a hinged buoyan ...

. In the 1990s, Professor Whittaker managed the team which designed, constructed and operated Britain's first wave power station, located on the Isle of

Islay Islay ( ; gd, Ìle, sco, Ila) is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll just south west of Jura, Scotland, Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The isl ...

. Prior to decommissioning in 1998, the 75 kW plant was one of only four wave power stations in the world supplying electricity to a national distribution grid. The significance of this work was recognised when the team was presented with The ESSO Energy award in 1994 by The Royal Society. This work led to the construction of the 500 kW Islay LIMPET plant which was commissioned in 2001 and is now being commercially developed. Professor Whittaker has been a pioneer of wave power engineering since the early 1970s, when he first worked with Professor Allan Wells on the design and delivery of the first Wells Turbine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whittaker, Trevor Living people 20th-century Irish engineers 21st-century Irish engineers Year of birth missing (living people) Academics of Queen's University Belfast Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering