UK Gets £25m Boost For Tidal And Wave Energy

By Cynthia Taylor

The tidal and wave energy industry has received a huge boost this past week when 4 projects got over £25 million of funds for the advancement of marine energy innovation as well as to help cut down costs.

Two of Britain's tidal developers for energy, Marine Current Turbines (MCT) and May Genand each received a total of £10 million for each of them, from the government, for the advancement to commercialise devices of their array formations that are off the coast of Wales and Scotland.

Pelamis Wave Power got £1.4 million from Energy Technologies Institute for their project of testing the cost effectiveness of the large scale wave energy converters that are in the UK waters.

The Scottish Government awarded Orkney European Marine Energy Centre, the largest testing site in the world, was given £4 million for funding of a new testing berth and to research the potential of support vessel for their marine energy projects.

May Genand is in the process of developing one of the biggest tidal power schemes in the world based at Inner Sound and at MCT. One of their major shareholders is Seimens, and they have been the developers of the Sea Gen marine current turbines that are a horizontal axis. MCT is now in the process of developing their first tidal array which is situated off the coast of Wales; this project is in partnership with RWE Npower renewables. The funding this past week has come from the government's MEAD scheme (Marine Energy Array Demonstrator), which was launched in April last year for supporting the testing of tidal devices, that are in array formation which are out at sea.

Greg Barker, Energy Minister said the£20m will be giving May Gen and SeaGeneration Wales the much needed boost they require in order to leap into the next level, and also to test the innovative turbines in their formations out at sea. This will enable the UK to take the vital step closer to the realisation of the full potential, of marine energy in the energy mix for the future.

The Scottish Energy Minister. Fergus Ewing, said that the European Marine Energy Centre is classified as the number one centre worldwide for the testing of marine devices. He continued that it was vital that the UK retains its lead, and reaps the economic benefits from this. Emec was established during 2003 and has since crated 250 marine energy jobs in Orkney

During 2004 the Palamis, a wave energy device was the first in the world that successfully generated electricity that was hooked up to the National Grid and the second project the Palamis P2 aka 'Sea Snake” wave farm is at present being tested by Emec.

ETI programmer manager, Simon Cheeseman said that the project with the UK SME, that supports innovation, and aims at helping identify a route towards cost effective installations and the operation of wave energy technology within the waters of the UK.

The reduction of costs to the level that is comparable to other low carbon systems, is vital in accelerating commercialisation and development the WEC device arrays.

The UK government has said that the Britain already has a very extensive support programme for their marine energy worldwide and has the potential to be a global leader in this sector.

Estimates have suggested that power from waves and the tides could meet the 29% of the demand for energy in the UK by the year 2050. British companies like May Gen, MCT and Pelamis are world leaders already in the development of wave energy as well as the tidal stream devices. And the Emec is the first of this kind of centre that is able offer developer’s opportunities to be able to test full scale prototypes that are in the sea.

The Renewable Energy Association (REA) head of marine energy, Dr Stephanie Merry, has says that the UK is in an area of 'calm waters' with regard to marine renewables. Support that exists such as the Renewables Obligation and the current targeted support, is doing a lot to help drive cost reductions, at the same time advancing concepts that are innovative, that improve efficiency as well.