Tag Archives: marine energy

Isle of Lewis to host one of world’s largest ‘wave farms’ generating renewable energy

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It has just been announced that Sladar on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides is to be the location for a wave farm generating up to 4MW, enough to power around 1,500 local houses.

The project is a collaboration between npower Renewables and Wavegen and is expected to generate  not only electricity but about 70 jobs in the area. It is one of the first marine renewable energy projects to be approved in the UK.

First Minister, Alex Salmond, announcing the go-ahead, said: ‘Today’s announcement is a significant step in Scotland’s journey to become a world leader in renewables’. Director of the conservation body WWF Scotland, Richard Dixon, said: ‘Scotland is a world leader on wave power and continued support for these green energy scheme will deliver huge export benefits in technology and expertise’.

Saltire Prize and North Sea Super-Grid concept see Scotland recognised as leader in clean green energy technologies

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Scotland’s £10million Saltire Prize for innovation in the production of renewable marine energy, announced by First Minister Alex Salmond in April 2008, has attracted 33 registrations of interest from Europe, the USA, Australia, South Africa, India, Mexico, England and from Scotland itself.

The European Commission has made an EU Infrastructure Priority of  Scotland’s proposal of a North Sea Super-grid to export future surpluses of marine energy.

In 2007 Scotland supplied over 20% of its electricity needs from renewable sources (figures for 2008 are due soon) and is on course to meet or surpass its target of delivering 31% electricity from renewables by 2011.

The ambitious and far-seeing Saltire Prize will award £10 million to the project that can best demonstrate in Scottish waters:

  • a commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology that achieves minimum electrical output of 100GW
  • over a continuous two-year period
  • using only the power of the sea

The prize has been lauded by significant figures across the spectrum of scientific and environmental organisations. James Lovelock, who created the Gaia Hypothesis aka the Gaia Theory, says: ‘Scotland is right to look to the oceans for its long-term energy source. Necessity is the mother of invention and the Saltire Prize will make the best idea practical’.

Scotland currently has a total installed renewable energy capacity of 3GW + but when projects in development are included the figure rises to 5.5GW. The First Minister has also noted that the Scottish Government has approved 17 renewable energy projects since May 2007, which would add a total of 1.5GW. He says: ‘In just over eighteen months we have determined more energy applications than over the whole of the previous four years’.

Argyll’s Islay Energy Trust is, in partnership with Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, right in the vanguard of marine energy development. As For Argyll has reported earlier, it is closely involved in a feasibility study and trial installation of tidal energy technology in the Sound of Islay.The Sound is Scotland’s second most powerful potential source of marine energy after the Pentland Firth.

Scotland world leader on climate change combat strategies

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Introducing the publication of the new Scottish Climate Change Bill – which received 21,000 responses during its consultation period – Stewart Stevenson, Climate Change Minister, described it as: ‘the most ambitious climate change legislation anywhere in the world’.

The bill proposes a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of all kinds (not just carbon dioxide) by 2030 and an 80% reduction by 2050, alongside measures to tackle shipping and aviation emissions.

If the bill goes through the Scottish Parliament it will also establish a Scottish Committee on Climate Change to advise ministers.

The campaign group, Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, called the bill: ‘the most significant for a generation’.

Argyll,s MSP, Jim Mather, whose energy and tourism brief – alongside enterprise – involves him closely in such developments, welcomes the bill, saying: ‘The Scottish Climate Change Bill is a very welcome indication of the resolve of our government to abide by its commitment and its election pledges and seek to play a full part in the global fight to combat climate change. There is huge international recognition of the moral and environmental obligation to reduce emissions and this bill sets out the legal framework upon which we intend to build.

‘Scotland has already set the pace within the UK with its ambitious target to cut emissions by 80% by 2050. With this present legislation we will be putting Scotland firmly at the vanguard of the green revolution and taking a world lead on this all-important issue. I am pleased to note too that the emissions target includes the whole basket of greenhouse gases and takes into account our contribution to the harmful effects from international shipping and from aviation. The SNP government is not avoiding its responsibilities or its obligations and that is an example that the UK government might care to follow’.

The Minister goes on to point out that Scotland is also tackling environmental issues through its emphasis on the development of renewable energies. It offers the World’s biggest singe prize for innovation in marine energy -the Saltire Prize, announced in April 2008.

Mr Mather says: ‘It is not only in the legislative field that Scotland sets to give a lead; from the recently announced £10 million International Saltire Fund for advances in marine energy capture to the £27.4 million Climate Change Fund for community projects, our government at Holyrood is setting the pace, showing ambition for Scotland and putting its money where its mouth is.

‘I keenly anticipate working with the Scottish Government and all stakeholders to help create a greener and more sustainable future for our country’.

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Scottish Renewables sees oil and gas industry as major player in marine power

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In a classic piece of lateral thinking, Scottish Renewables has targeted the oil and gas industry as a potential major contributor with the skills to help develop the generation of a gigawatt of electricity from Scotland’s marine resources. This would power 570,000 homes.

Scottish Renewables is the green energy trade body and is running a one-day conference on marine power in Europe’s oil capital, Aberdeen, on 6th November. Its CEO, Jason Ormiston, said that the choice of Aberdeen as the location for the conference was deliberate. The intention is to alert the oil and gas industry to the real opportunities in their potential involvement in the development of renewables.

The conference is supported by the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group. It will explore how Scotland can generate a gigawatt of energy by 2020 and see an increased input from the fossil fuels sector.

Crown Estate to lease sections of Scotland’s sea bed to marine energy developers

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It is estimated that 25% of Europe’s marine energy resources are around Scottish shores. The biggest potential sources of marine-generated power, though, are the most difficult to harness. Tidal races – like the Pentland Firth and the North Channel provide consistently reliable water speeds but installing the heavy engineering necessary to generate from these races is complex and expensive. However, one gigawatt of marine-generated power is targeted to be contributed to the national grid by 2020.

Argyll’s resources in this field are considerable – the North Channel from Kintyre to the Antrim coast in Northern Ireland; the Sound of Islay; the Sound of Corryvreckan etc. It is also likely that as the technology develops, there will be small scale marine-hydro schemes mirroring the small scale freshwater hydro schemes targeted now by the Scottish Government.

The Crown Estate (currently flexing its muscles with Rothesay Bay boat owners) is to start leasing areas of Scotland’s sea bed to energy developing companies within the next two weeks. While cranking up access to Scotland’s marine energy will be welcomed, it is likely that the move will draw political attention to the anomaly of the Crown Estate’s automatic ownership of such resources around the UK. The issue of Scotland’s oil may be replaced by a similar one of Scotland’s water.

The Irish company OpenHydro is likely to be a bidder in the leasing process and is well ahead of the game. It has developed a barge capable of lowering a tidal turbine to the sea bed and is currently testing this at the Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

OpenHydro’s CEO, James Ives believes that a tidal farm could be up and gong within tw years. The compnay will be taking their barge out in the following week and lowering the generator to the sea bed. Ives describes this as ‘a world first’. He says: ‘We feel that we have a fantastic turbine technology that has already proven itself by being the first to run on a national grid, and we are about to demonstrate that we can deploy turbines on the sea bed. These are fundamental steps towards us meeting our objectives of building farms of tidal turbines. It is very near and it is very real.’

A note of caution is sounded by Neil Kermode, CEO of the Marine Energy Centre. He sees the Pentland Firth as the jewel in the crown of marine energy resources, a magnet spurring companies to race to harness it. He is concerned that this may produce premature activity which, should it fail, would damage the credibility of the industry. He does not want to see companies going into the Pentland Firth until they are ready and would prefer to see a lot more machines up and running first.