Scotland’s marine energy industry forges ahead

To coincide with this week’s International Conference on Ocean Energy in Edinburgh this week (23-25 February), Scottish Enterprise has announced the successful completion of a number of key projects in the marine energy sector.

Supported by £4.8 million of grants from the Scottish Enterprise Marine Energy RD&D Fund programme, Scotland continues to advance the marine energy sector through the completion of three milestone projects.

• Scottish Enterprise’s £2.4 million Tidal Energy Array Cabling Project, has completed with the demonstration of two innovative cabling solutions that have a strong potential to lower costs in this critical area for the tidal energy industry. Operating out of its office in Aberdeen, Jee Ltd. successfully completed a demonstration of its unique electrical cable location and protection system. Working alongside Stromness-based energy and environmental consultancy Aquatera Ltd., Jee executed a number of cable deployments and retrievals through their ‘U-tube’ tidal foundation structure. Subsequently Aquatera successfully demonstrated the use of the a multi-point moored barge to accurately lay, secure and retrieve cables in high tidal flows – a world first.

• OpenHydro, a DCNS company, completed a £1.8 million WATERS-funded project to design, build and test a Power Conversion Unit for its unique Open-Centre Turbine, which has been developed and tested at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) over the last decade. A collaboration between the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, with support from European Regional Development Funds, WATERS was set up in 2010 to assist in the development and demonstration of wave and tidal energy device technology in the seas around Scotland. OpenHydro’s Open-Centre Turbine was designed to be deployed directly on the seabed and has proven to be reliable in a variety of sea conditions at EMEC. The WATERS project is a vital step in the commercialisation of the company’s technology and involved major Scottish suppliers such as James Fisher.

• Edinburgh-based wave energy company Albatern’s completion of its £600,000 WATERS-funded project to build and demonstrate its unique WaveNET wave energy array off the west coast of Scotland. Designed to capture the energy from waves and convert it into sustainable low-carbon electricity, the development and deployment of a working WaveNET array of six units represents a significant achievement for the wave energy sector in bringing forward commercial solutions. Whilst offering working arrays aimed at smaller-scale markets such as aquaculture and remote communities, this project also provides a strong base to scale the WaveNET system up for grid connected projects.

Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said:

“I am very proud of the role Scotland has played in the development of marine energy technologies and the Scottish Government will continue to show that ambition and leadership. These recent successes show that there is still progress being made despite it being a challenging time for the industry.

“Through initiatives like WATERS and Wave Energy Scotland, we will continue to support technology developers to amass the knowledge and expertise they need to build a world-leading marine energy industry.”

Maggie McGinlay, director of energy and clean technologies, Scottish Enterprise, said: “Scotland is world-leading in the development of renewable energy and it is our role to ensure that ambitious companies in this sector can reach the next stage of commercial exploitation. Marine Energy RD&D funding allows us to help companies develop new technologies with global potential, R&D and jobs and secure the fabrication and deployment of wave and tidal stream technologies in Scotland.”