SolarMarine Energy - About Us

Who Are We?

  • Team of highly experienced engineering professionals with over 80 years of hands-on Marine and Energy industry experience
  • SolarMarine Energy Ltd formed in 2016. (2017 Enterprise Ireland Competitive Start-Up Fund winners)
  • In addition to the core team we have an extensive network of experienced engineering professionals that we utilize on a project specific basis

What We Do

  • Design / Develop innovative Floating Solar energy structure solutions for Coastal and Offshore deployment (Developed and registered our own IP)
  • Provide Marine Consultancy Services for Offshore Windfarm developments and Wave Energy projects

We Provide:

Floating PV and Hybrid Energy Plant solutions

-Site assessments and Feasibility Studies

-Engineering Design Appraisals of Floating PV Plant Designs

-Tank Testing and Numerical Modelling of Floating PV Structures

-Wind Loading and Mooring studies/Calculations for Floating PV Arrays

-Nearshore and Offshore Floating PV Structure Design

-Design development of Hybrid marine energy plant solutions

The SolarMarine Energy Core Team:

Eamon Howlin - CEO

A Chartered Marine and Civil Engineer – MSc. in Offshore Technology – 30 years’ experience across the maritime industry including founding a successful marine services company & working internationally as an engineer for oil & gas, civil infrastructural developments, offshore windfarms & wave energy developers. Founder & CEO of SolarMarine Energy. Working with DNV in their joint industry project to write a recommended practice for floating solar plants.

Dr Jon Hancock - Engineering Manager

Ph.D. in Civil Engineering – Chartered Civil Engineer – 20 years’ experience in a broad range of disciplines in the oil & gas and construction industry – Lead Structural Engineer on Wave & Floating Solar energy projects from concept design through to detailed engineering, fabrication and operation & maintenance. Strong numerical analysis ability from hand calculations to use of non-linear time domain finite element packages for structural and mooring analysis. Co-author of a book on floating solar.  Working with DNV in their joint industry project to write a recommended practice for floating solar plants.

Marcus Oliver Gay - Commercialization Manager

Mr. Gay is an innovation and business strategy consultant with expertise across the oil, gas, power, renewable energy, environmental remediation, municipal and industrial wastewater sectors. Mr. Gay has a M.Sc in Marine / Environmental Chemistry and is the President of Novus Technical Services, LLC, a Massachusetts based innovation and strategy consultancy that provides technology development, business analytics and operational strategy services to clients working within the Water, Energy and Environmental Services sectors. Mr. Gay is a T shaped professional with broad experience across a variety of business functions and proceses while also having deep experience supporting the successful commercialization of RD&D companies developing novel cleantech solutions.

Eleni Trakosa - Marketing & Communications Executive

MSc in Strategic Project Management and BA in Business Administration, with over 10 years experience in customer service, marketing and operations.
Eleni is responsible for the SME brand image. This includes monitoring traffic and trends on the website and social media channels as well as internal and external communications with partners and stakeholders.  

Mike Whelan – Operations Manager

40 years’ experience working in the marine sector including oil & gas, wave energy and marine salvage. He founded and successfully ran a number of companies specialising in marine support/towage operations.

Dr. Kenneth Doherty – R & D Manager

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Experimental Physics – An experienced R&D manager in the marine renewable energy industry with an esteemed track record in Tank Testing of prototype marine devices, Mathematical modelling and writing complex Algorithms. Kenneth is an accomplished Hydrodynamicist.

SolarMarine Energy Associates:

Professor Marco Rosa-Clot – Physicist

Marco is our Technical advisor. He has wide experience in theoretical physics and applied industrial research as a university full professor and researcher in Italy and abroad. He was awarded with several prizes for projects in the domain of renewable energy (Vespucci prize, 2008; Aramco prize, 2015; Venezia prize, 2015). He is author of about 70 papers of theoretical physics published in international reviews, including more than 30 papers in the domain of renewable energies and floating PV and two books for the Academic Press on the subject of Floating PV. Marco is part of our team on the DNV GL Recommended Practices JIP.

Professor Trevor Whittaker – Coastal Engineer

Trevor has recently retired from Queen’s University Belfast where he was Professor of Coastal Engineering a Queen’s, Head of the Marine Renewables research group and a former Head of the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering. Since retiring Trevor works with us on the development of our floating solar structures for nearshore deployment. In 2002 He was elected as a fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of his pioneering work on Wave Energy. He is also a fellow of The Royal Institute of Naval Architects and The Institution of Civil Engineers and a Chartered Engineer. He has over 40 years of experience in leading multi-disciplinary R&D teams delivering projects on wave and tidal stream energy.

Associate Organizations

Some of the organizations we work with include: