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3. Funding Wave & Tidal Energy

The British Wind Energy Association, which these days is also promoting wave and tidal current technology, has called for government action to create a UK wave and tidal power industry.  Its new report ‘Into the Blue: Financing the Future of the Emerging Wave and Tidal Power Sector’, produced by Climate Change Capital, a specialist merchant banking firm focusing on climate change and energy security, examines the level and type of financial support that the sector needs to move it forward from its current research and demonstration phase.  The report says that he UK has:‘a fantastic opportunity to become a world leader in the development and deployment of wave and tidal power.  Most of the companies involved in the sector, including those not currently based in the UK, see the UK as the place to develop their businesses’   and concludes:

Marcus Rand, BWEA CEO, said: “While wind is key to delivering most of the 10% renewable target we need the emerging renewables, like wave and tidal, to begin to play a major role as soon as possible. The Marine Performance Fund is a smart and innovative idea as it rewards the winners but doesn’t ask Government to pick them in advance. The tax payer will be rewarding successful projects and catalysing the private sector to invest in the industry at this critical stage. If we get this right we will be taking the first steps in creating a world beating industry.”

Ian Temperton of Climate Change Capital said: “Private capital will continue to be attracted to the sector, if the right policy framework and level of government support is put in place. The proposals derived from this study create the opportunity to combine the entrepreneurship already evident in the industry with the risk capital it needs to fund its next stage of development.”

Simon Roberts, project Advisor and Chair of the Government’s Renewable Advisory Board’s Finance Working Group said: “This study has really got to grips with the issues for supporting these new technologies as they take the next vital steps towards commercialisation. The proposals work with the grain of the market and represent a genuine breakthrough in thinking about how Government and renewable energy entrepreneurs can work together to build a low carbon economy for the UK.”

The BWEA say that ‘Into the Blue’ is the first step in the emergence of the UK marine renewables industry as a significant player in the UK power portfolio, and it therefore recommends that the Government state that future transitional support will also be necessary for a successful industry.

·      In August, the Government announced that  it would be providing an extra £50m to support wave and tidal projects, via a Marine Research Development Fund, so some progress has been made.

OPT for Spain

US wave energy developer Ocean Power Technologies has been sea-testing its PowerBuoy technology since 1997 and signed a deal with Spanish electricity utility Iberdrola in  March for a pilot project to install 10 of its buoys in the Bay of Biscay.  The PowerBuoy consists of an outer shell that moves up and down on a central column. This movement runs a hydraulic pump which drives a fluid through a hydraulic motor and a generator.  OPT say that a 10MW power station would consist of a cluster of 40 PowerBuoys  electrically connected together in a rectangular array covering an area of 1.6ha. There are plans to establish a UK subsiduary www.oceanpowertechnologies.com

Pelamis backed

With the allocation of a new grant from the Carbon Trust, Ocean Power Delivery’s Pelamis wave energy device now has funding of over £7.5m.  OPD has already been backed by Norsk Hydro Technology Ventures and 3i. Ultimately the aim is to build 30MW wave farms.

 For more  on this and other wave and tidal devices see the Technology section of Renew 151.