About us

​Slow Mill was founded in 2012 to develop the Slow Mill wave energy technology, based on a unique blade construction that greatly resists open flow. In the following years the technology was developed by testing increasingly larger scale models in the lab, on open water and in the North Sea to the point where a wave array of several well performing autonomic plug and play models can be demonstrated. Members of the management team own the technology and are highly motivated to bring a successful commercial product onto the market to accelerate the energy transition, support ocean life, lessen fossil fuel dependence and boost the circular economy.  

Team

Erwin Meijboom MSc MA
CEO & cofounder

Erwin Meijboom is cofounder and has a technical background in Wageningen, specialised in environmental sciences and sustainability. He worked as a consultant after gaining broad experience in various management roles at the government and mentored startups. As CTO he was responsible for research and the technical development, recently he toke over the general management role.
Email: meijboom@slowmill.nl

Patrick Jansens
Construction Engineer

Patrick Jansens has a background in steel construction and specialises in plate steel. He made the previous Slow Mill models and helped construct, install, set up and execute the lab tests. Responsible for construction, installation and maintenance of models and prototypes.
Email: Jansens@slowmill.nl 

Erwin Croughs †
Inventor Slow Mill & former cofouder 

Erwin Croughs sailed the world oceans for over a decade and then specialised in design, development, production and marketing of products. He was prolific award-winning innovator, frequently introducing successful new products like the Doggy, a self adjusting outdoor table and first prize winner. He also won the iSEa prize for the Slow Mill wave energy convertor concept. He passed away unexpectedly in 2023.

Mocean Offshore
Lead Engineer

Mocean Offshore joined the team with three engineers in 2018 at the start of the Texel pilot project. They engineered and designed the Slowmill - 40, the 1:2.5 scale model that has been tested in 2022 at the North Sea, 4.5 kilometers offshore the island of Texel. 

Ingenieursbureau Rotterdam
Hydraulic Engineers

IBR joined the team with two people to engineer and model the Power Takeoff (PTO) unit in the Slowmill - 40. 

Innoship/Aqitec
Naval Engineers

Innoship was responsible for the design of the research vessel. This innovative SWATH is used as experimental vessel with a unique click-and-connect crane to the WEC, which is designed by Aqitec. It's designed to remain stable in the waves. It further has an energy storage unit on board to uptake the electricity produced by the WEC and eventually power the ship.

Projectteam

The team further consists of projectpartners that provides ecologists, hydrodynamic experts, electrical engineers and constructors.