The managing director of the company that sold the Pelamis wave device to Orkney Islands Council for £1 has said he’s disappointed with the decision to scrap it.
A wave energy convertor bought by Orkney Council for just £1, will be decommissioned costing the council £150,000.
Orkney Islands Council has bought the Pelamis P2 wave energy device for £1.
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) on Orkney will lead on a Europe-wide research project to prevent “valley of death” failures of pre-commercial marine energy projects.
Orkney’s European Marine Energy Centre (Emec) is seeking ideas for what to do with its Pelamis wave-energy device.
Green-energy projects worth more than £10billion have enjoyed support from a three-year-old specialist investment bank which has its headquarters in Scotland.
The main advisory body for the marine energy industry has called for a rethink of the way government funding is dished out to the struggling wave and tidal sector. In a new report, the Marine Energy Programme Board (MEPB) stressed the need for sustained financial support to commercialise the sector, as well as a “joint vision” of the industry’s future. The industry, which employs about 1,700 people, has suffered numerous setbacks in recent months. In December, Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Power said it would “downsize” its business after posting losses of £16.5million for the year to March 31, and a month earlier wave-power firm Pelamis went into administration after failing to secure enough funding for research and development.
Wave power company Pelamis has made its remaining staff redundant after no final offers were made for the business. Highlands and Islands Enterprise has been selected as the preferred bidder to take over the company’s assets. Administrators were called in last month after Pelamis failed to secure enough funding to develop its technology.