Ocean Power Jumps Most Ever on Australia Waves: Trenton Mover

Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (OPTT), a builder of plants that produce electricity from the motion of waves, surged the most ever after Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) agreed to use its systems for a 19-megawatt plant in Australia.

Ocean Power rose 72 percent to $3.55 at the close in New York, the biggest gain since the Pennington, New Jersey-based company began trading on April 25, 2007.

The companies will jointly build the wave-power plant in Victoria, Lockheed said in a statement today. They’ve been collaborating on the technology since 2004.

Ocean Power won a grant of A$66.5 million ($68 million) from Australia’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism for the project. The company is also developing wave-energy projects in Oregon, Hawaii, Spain and the U.K.

Wave energy has the potential to produce about 2,000 terawatt-hours of electricity a year, or enough power to meet 10 percent of the world’s current energy needs, Lockheed said in the statement, citing the World Energy Council.

To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Martin in New York at cmartin11@bloomberg.net; Louise Downing in London at ldowning4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net