Scottish wave and tidal energy funding

In the world of renewables, wind energy currently attracts the most headlines, understandable given the increasing visibility and progress of that sector of the renewable energy industry. It is often reported that marine renewables in the form of wave and tidal energy is ten to fifteen years behind offshore wind but there are now signs of notable progress as this nascent industry gains confidence and experience. The Crown Estate is now listing no fewer than 33 various project sites in the UK, mostly around the western seaboard.

Some of the big players in the world of engineering including Siemens, Alstom and Rolls-Royce are showing increasing interest in the wave and tide energy pioneers, an indication of the increasing awareness of the potential for the industry.

These latest awards, the second round of WATERS (Wave & Tidal Energy: Research, Development & Demonstration) funding, is aimed at enabling developers and supply chain firms to boost their share of the growing international marine energy market, estimated to be worth up to £4bn to Scotland’s economy by 2020.

The recipients include a £1.2m grant to Scotrenewables Tidal Power Ltd towards their £9.24m project to design, construct and install a 2MW SR2000 commercial-scale floating tidal turbine. The company’s 250kW prototype SR250 model is currently generating power in a two year test programme in Orkney. Edinburgh based AlbaTERN will receive £617,000 towards the £1.3m project cost of their WaveNET demonstrator array comprising six SQUID 7.5kW wave energy convertors. AWS Ocean Energy Ltd (in which Alstom has a 40% equity share) will benefit by £3.9m towards the design, build and launch stages of a project to prove the AWS-III wave energy convertor.

A grant of £1.4m will go to Glasgow based Nautricity in their work to build and test a full scale, pre-commercial CoRMaT 500kW tidal turbine comprising two closely spaced contra rotating rotors. Finally, Oceanflow Development Ltd is currently developing a twin turbine variant of its floating, tethered Evopod technology and will receive £750,000 towards the £1.3m total project cost of the staged demonstration of the Evopod semi-submerged turbine technology.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland Deputy First Minister said, “The Scottish Government is very pleased to be supporting these five exciting wave and tidal projects through this funding. The WATERS 2 funding sends a further clear signal that Scotland, already blessed with some of the world’s greatest concentration of marine energy resources and with unrivalled offshore energy expertise, will continue to provide the optimum research and investment environment for developers and commercial partners”.

By Peter Barker