The UK’s Carbon Trust is to support two cutting-edge marine energy devices in a bid to accelerate the commercial development of wave and tidal energy in Britain.
One is a Scottish project, which marks a first for the trust, which was criticised earlier this year by the Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland (FREDS), whose Marine Energy Group (MEG) noted that it had been some time since wave and tidal technologies in gestation received funding support in Scotland.
MEG warned that “insufficient or misdirected” financial support was a key barrier to the pace of success of the marine renewables sector in Scotland.
As reported in the September issue of Energy, MEG also said: “It is a matter of concern for developers that the applied research fund from the Carbon Trust is not, at present, supporting Scottish marine energy projects.”
That situation has now changed.
Projects to be supported through the Marine Energy Accelerator programme are devices under development by Pelamis Wave Power and Marine Current Turbines. The Carbon Trust is providing £250,000 for the Pelamis project and a further £150,000 for a feasibility study on the MCT foundations technology.
The money will be channelled into installation and maintenance issues as these currently account for up to 50% of the project costs of wave and tidal energy and could delay more widespread deployment if not reduced.
Reliably moving a 180m-long Pelamis electricity-generating “sea snake” on to a mooring many kilometres offshore is a task that highlights the challenges of making marine energy a commercially viable method of generating renewable energy.
So the Carbon Trust and Edinburgh-headquartered Pelamis are investigating an innovative remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) to assist with manoeuvring these giant machines into position. This is very much a spin-off application from the offshore oil&gas industry.
They will also integrate remote-control technology into existing systems to enable deployment in rougher seas.
According to the Carbon Trust, these developments promise to significantly reduce vessel and equipment requirements and make installation and maintenance quicker, cheaper and safer, thereby perhaps reducing the overall cost of the energy generated.
On the other front, the Carbon Trust is supporting a project with Bristol-based Marine Current Turbines to develop an innovative way to deploy its pioneering SeaGen tidal energy system, which is currently being evaluated at the European Marine Energy Centre – Orkney.
The new method will involve a remotely-operated subsea drilling platform which will instal foundation piles in advance of the main turbine support structure being deployed in a single unit.
This would enable smaller and less expensive support vessels to be used for the offshore works, reducing the costs of turbine installation.
The MCT technology is likely to be tested in a disused quarry and, if it performs as expected, will be used in SeaGen’s next deployment off Anglesey, where the company is working with RWE npower renewables to deploy a 10MW tidal farm using seven SeaGen units.
These two projects form part of the wider Carbon Trust’s Marine Energy Accelerator programme, which brings together device developers, component technology manufacturers, engineering consultants and academic research groups to accelerate cost reduction.
Mark Williamson, CT’s director of innovations, said: “Innovation in the deployment and maintenance of wave and tidal devices will be critical in cutting the cost of marine energy and unlocking the potential of this fantastic renewable energy resource.
“Our analysis shows that the UK is already leading the world in wave energy. If we can bring down the costs of deploying this technology, we will be able to generate marine energy on a scale that will help meet our 2020 renewable target and deliver significant economic value as well.”
Trust research claims that 25% of the world’s wave technologies are already being developed in the UK. The analysis also suggests that Britain could be the “natural owner” of the global wave power market, generating revenues worth £2billion per year by 2050 and up to 16,000 direct jobs.
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