Scotland is delivering on its settled target to be a leading European country in renewable energy generation.

Marking this key development yesterday in a ceremony at Aquamarine Power’s site at Billia Croo near Stromness in Orkney, First Minister Alex Salmond pressed the button connecting the floating yellow unit to the national grid.

You can see the pipe on the surface of the water about a third of a mile offshore but what you can see is a bit of an iceberg – no more than the top bar of a 60ft long underwater flap driven backwards and forwards by passing waves. A lever attached to the flap drives a hydraulic piston on the sea bed which pipes high pressure water to a normal hydro-electric turbine onshore.

Transmission to the national grid from the northern offshore isle of Orkney is via an existing subsea connector.

Mr Salmond used the occasion to announce the granting of a further £975,000 – the biggest ever Scottish Enterprise grant for research and development awarded within the marine renewables industry – to Aquamarine to develop the next generation of Oyster. This will see 3 linked devices generating up to 2MW by 2011. This is not only on the near horizon but confidence is secured by the fact that the first generation device is now in the water and generating online.

The First Minister said: ‘The power of the waves and the tides is not infinite but it is as near to infinite as anything we can get on this earth. If we can harness it properly we have the key to the future of green, clean energy. Scotland is at the cutting edge and we intend to stay in front’.

Scotland’s renewable energy potential is estimated at 60GW. Our waters have 10% of Europe’s potential in wave power and up to 25% of its tidal power.

While the noth of Scotland, with the Pentland Firth and the exposed Atlantic will be the first to see major developments in renewable energy start generating, Argyll will be the next. The area’s resource potential is the next largest in Scotland. The Islay Energy Trust, in partnership with Aberdeen University, is already well into collaborative marine turbine array trials in the 9 knot Sound of Islay.

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