The majority owner of MeyGen, the world’s largest tidal stream energy project- based in Caithness, has extended a construction contraction with a global defence contractor for the delivery of one of the largest capacity single rotor turbines ever built.
Atlantis’ new 1.5 megawatt AR1500 turbine will be built with the help of Lockheed Martin and is hoped to fulfil the company’s MeyGen project turbine supply obligations.
The 18 metre rotor diameter AR1500 turbine, scheduled for delivery dockside in Scotland in 2016, will be one of the largest capacity single rotor turbines ever built.
International Well Control Forum (IWCF) has announced a workshop and networking event for Aberdeen next month ahead of Offshore Well Intervention Europe 2015.
The event will take place on Tuesday April 14, and will focus on the best practices for global safety, new initiatives that are being launched to drive up well control competency, and operators, contractors and service companies will be on hand to explain how to get more involved.
A project for a coal-fuelled power station with carbon capture and storage (CSS) technology at Grangemouth has secured £4.2 million from the Scottish and UK governments.
The money has been awarded to the Seattle-based Summit Power Group for research and feasibility studies for its proposed Caledonia Clean Energy Project.
The 570 MW coal-gasification station would be fitted with CCS technology, which captures emissions from fossil fuel power plants and permanently stores them underground.
The scheme’s backers said it was designed to capture 90% of CO2 emissions, which would then be carried along existing on-shore and sub-sea pipelines to be permanently stored 2km beneath the North Sea.
Funding has been secured for a £25 million green energy centre at St Andrews University which will create 225 jobs.
It is hoped the site at Guardbridge will help regenerate part of north-east Fife, with apprenticeships and opportunities in the construction of the centre.
The scheme is part of a drive by St Andrews to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral university.
KDM Marine International have appointed a regional manager for their work in the eastern hemisphere.
The company, which is part of the James Fisher Group, has appointed Faisel Chaudry as their new regional manager for the eastern hemisphere.
Faisel, who has more than eight years' experience in the oil and gas and offshore renewables industries, is tasked with growing the market-leading company's presence in regions like the Middle East, India, North Africa and Asia Pacific.
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped by more than 8% last year in the face of lower electricity use and less burning of coal to generate power, provisional figures show.
Renewables such as wind, solar, bioenergy and hydropower generated almost a fifth (19%) of the UK’s electricity in 2014, a new record high for the clean technologies.
There was a drop in emissions of 8.4% in 2014 compared with 2013, while output of the main greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide - fell by nearly a tenth (9.7%), statistics from the Department of Energy and Climate Change showed.
Nearly half of Scotland’s energy consumption came from renewable sources last year, official figures show.
Provisional renewable electricity generation 2014 national statistics show 49.6% of gross electricity consumption came from renewable sources in Scotland last year, an increase from 44.4% in 2013.
Renewable electricity generation increased last year by 11.7% and is now estimated at 18,959 gigawatt-hours (GWh).
This is approximately enough electricity to power the equivalent of an additional 430,000 Scottish households for a year, compared to 2013.
A row broke out last night after a survey showed that the majority of people living in the north and north-east of Scotland support wind power.
The industry claimed the results shot down the “vocal minority” of objectors who claim that most Scots are opposed to giant turbines dotting the countryside.
But anti-windfarm campaigners said the findings had to be “taken with a bucket of salt” as they did not separate those who are “adversely affected”, mainly people living in rural areas and communities targeted by wind developers.
A report has been published on the performance of subsea cabling in high energy environments to support the development of commercial wave and tide energy sites.
The aim of the analysis, by the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) and The Crown Estate, is to improve the industry’s understanding of how best to specify and manage subsea cables.
Tests were done by investigation how the cables installed at EMEC test sites in Orkney have been performing since installation.
The amount of electricity produced by projects owned by local communities has increased by more than a quarter in the last year, the Scottish Government has revealed.
Ministers have set the target of having plants producing 500 megawatts (MW) of power in communities and local ownership by 2020.
The latest figures show such schemes can generate 361MW, up from 285MW in the previous year.
The increase was revealed by energy minister Fergus Ewing ahead of the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) conference in Stirling.
Trade body Scottish Renewables has announced the appointment of its new chairman and vice-chairman.
Patricia Hawthorn, partner at law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn, has been appointed chairman of the renewables body while Gordon MacDougall, managing director, Western Europe at renewable developer RES, has been appointed vice-chairman.
Ms Hawthorn replaces Ronnie Bonnar, managing director of Repsol Nuevas Energias UK, who has chaired Scottish Renewables since 2013.
Sweden and Norway have agreed to boost their target for renewable-energy production amid concerns the additional capacity will exacerbate a power glut and strain the region’s electricity grid.
The subsidised joint energy programme will be increased by 2 terawatt hours (TWh), or the annual use of about 80,000 Swedish households, to 28.4TWh by 2020 from 2012 levels, the countries said today in Stockholm. The proposed new target will be set for January 1, 2016, pending lawmaker approval in both nations.
Global laboratory testing, inspection and certification services firm Bureau Veritas (BV) said today it had "supercharged" its Optimise software to help offshore operators and contractors get more out of their assets and develop projects more cost-effectively.
Matthieu de Tugny, senior vice-president and head of offshore, BV, said: "Low and falling energy prices focus attention onto the reliability, availability and maintenance (RAM) of both existing assets and plant and ongoing developments.
Global marine technology company Kongsberg Maritime reports a large increase in the number of people taking part in its training courses.
Trainee numbers rose by 26% last year, boosted by a 36% increase for courses at the firm's training centre in Westhill, near Aberdeen.
A £60million boost for community-scale renewables led by the Green Investment Bank, has hit the spot, says environmental specialist Atmos Consulting.
The firm said that by focusing on upfront build and operation costs, rather than subsidising generation, the bank was removing barriers to development, and so offering access to long-term subsidy income for rural communities.
Sentinel Marine has been awarded a contract for a new emergency vessel for the Mariner field.
The five-year deal with Statoil will enable the Aberdeen-based industry support firm to provide a new emergency response and rescue ship on the Mariner field.
Three UK institutions are working to develop enough electricity to power two universities.
The Crown Estate, Aberdeen University and The Robert Gordon University (RGU) are to carry out a project that will produce enough energy for two universities.
Inspection, Maintenance and Repair (IMR) specialist N-Sea said today it had used the world’s first "wet repair habitat" to complete a subsea cable repair.
The habitat has been developed by Moyle Interconnector for a 500 megawatt cable in the Irish Sea.
Surf and subsea contractor Ceona has secured a letter of intent for its flagship field development vessel.
Operated by Walter Oil & Gas, the Ceona Amazon will be deployed for the Coelacanth Export Pipeline project which will involve the the installation of an oil and gas line to the new Coelacanth Platform.
The President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto arrived in Aberdeen today during a UK state visit to mark closer ties on energy issues and climate change.
President Nieto was greeted in Aberdeen by Alistair Carmichael, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and escorted to the Aberdeen Town House. He was joined by energy minister Matthew Hancock and introduced to senior UK oil and gas representatives, including Shell and BP.
Months of hard science by budding young students at an Aberdeen school came to an end yesterday when they presented their projects at TechFest last week.
TechFest's Heroes of Tomorrow event, sponsored by Statoil, had pupils from S1 to S6 giving short presentations to their families and peers on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Maersk have launched a new training facility in Kingswells, providing additional training opportunities to oil and gas workers in Aberdeen.
Launched this week, the centre aims to complement the training facilities that already exist in the north-east, including the survival centre in Portlethen and the boat training facility in Stonehaven.
A Scottish biofuel company has joined forces with an Irish energy efficency services company to help UK industries reduce their carbon footprint.
The partnership, between EcoEnergy Group and Crowley Carbon, brings both company's next-generation energy and cost-effective solutions and also underlines the strong alliance between both countries.
In today’s economic climate, using existing infrastructure to gain increased production whilst reducing the complexity and costs of operations has become paramount.
The Wood Report recommends that the industry deploys existing technologies to full effect and that new technologies are developed to maximise recovery from the UKCS – a recommendation that is particularly relevant for Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) and Reservoir Management techniques.
The industry has become adept at collecting and analysing large volumes of data to assess subsurface conditions, but these techniques typically require complex and expensive data acquisition - e.g. 4D seismic – in association with large scale model analysis. The complexity of these techniques means that results and interpretations on the performance of injection operations during IOR activities are often derived days, weeks or months after measurements have been collected from the field.
The UK public believes that wind power subsidies paid by consumers are many times higher than they actually are, according to polling for the industry.
A survey questioned 2,000 people for industry body RenewableUK about what they thought payments for wind farms added to fuel bills, and found the average estimate was £259 for a typical £1,300 dual-fuel energy bill.
But the industry said the actual cost of wind power subsidies from domestic energy bills was around £18 a year.
