Milestone for Wave and Tidal Energy
A globally significant milestone was reached yesterday with the opening of Scottish waters to 1,200MW of Wave and Tidal development projects.
The Crown Estate, which owns the UK seabed to 12 nautical miles, announced the successful bidders for the world’s first commercial wave and tidal leasing round, for ten sites in Scotland’s Pentland Firth and Orkney waters. The announcement, which has been delayed to ensure a higher quality of bids, has supassed the initial 700 MW target capacity. It proposes 1.2 GW of installed capacity by the wave and tidal energy developers for 2020; 600 MW each from wave and tidal.
The developers who have signed a total of ten agreements for lease are:
Wave:
• SSE Renewables Developments Ltd, 200 MW for Costa Head site
• Aquamarine Power Ltd & SSE Renewables Developments Ltd, 200 MW for Brough Head site
• Scottish Power Renewables UK Ltd, 50 MW for Marwick Head site
• E.ON, 50 MW for West Orkney South site
• E.ON, 50 MW for West Orkney Middle South site
• Pelamis Wave Power Ltd, 50 MW for Armadale site.
Tidal:
• SSE Renewables Developments (UK) Ltd, 200 MW for Westray South site
• SSE Renewables Holdings (UK) Ltd & OpenHydro Site Development Ltd, 200 MW for Cantick Head site
• Marine Current Turbines Ltd, 100 MW for Brough Ness site
• Scottish Power Renewables UK Ltd, 100 MW for Ness of Duncansby site
A map of the sites is available
here.
The UK already has the most advanced Offshore Wind developments as a result of the 3 licensing rounds that have been held so far. This first round for Wave and Tidal cements the UK's position as leader in the Wave and Tidal sector and, coming much earlier in the technologies development, promises to have a far greater impact on the sector than was experienced by offshore wind from its development rounds.
Orkney is already a focus for Wave and Tidal being home to the
European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) which is instrumental in testing new marine devices. Innovation Norway London organised a
tour there last summer.
Wave Hub, in the South West of England, will also offer commercial grid connected test facilities for developers.
Following announcement of Round 1, other opportunities are still open with The Crown Estate planning further wave and tidal leasing rounds for demonstration and commercial projects.
In this context, a ‘demonstration project’ means:
a single wave or tidal device; or
a small array of up to 20 devices with total capacity less than 10 MW.
The Marine Energy Action Plan
The Round 1 announcement came the day after the publication of The Marine Energy Action Plan, which has been jointly developed by government and industry. It sets out an agreed vision for the UK marine energy sector to 2030, outlines the actions required by both private and public sectors to facilitate the development and deployment of marine energy technology.
Over the last year the Scottish Executive and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland have published their own marine energy road-mapping reports (see this NewEnergyFocus.com story), but this Plan has considered the issues facing the sector at a UK level.
The Action plan's roadmap sees small arrays (2-10MW) in construction starting from now until 2017, and large scale arrays (10-100MW) deployed from 2014 onwards.
The Action Plan is available
here.
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