Scotland will support five emerging energy projects with £13 million ($19.74 million) in grants that use devices that harness the movement of oceans and other bodies of water to generate electricity.
The recipients are RWE Npower, which will get most of the funding at £6 million for its Siadar wave energy project, Oyster creator Aquamarine Power (£3.15) million, and Oceanflow Energy (£650,000).
Openhydro, which is developing a power conversion and control system for connecting tidal turbine arrays to the electricity grid, will get £1.85 million and AWS Ocean Energy will take £1.39 million for its wave energy converter.
Scotland’s wave and tidal energy support fund is a partnership between the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise with the aid of European regional development funds.
RWE Npower is building its 4-megawatt Siadar wave energy project which is one of the world’s largest wave energy stations and Scotland’s first commercial wave farm.
Located off the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles, Siadar can produce about 8,000 megawatt-hours of electricity yearly and provide energy to 1,500 households, one-fifth of the Western Isles’ population.
Aquamarine Power is developing its 2.4-MW Oyster demonstration project in Orkney, northern Scotland. The Oyster is a buoyant, hinged flap attached to the seabed 10-meters deep and half a kilometer from shore. This hinged flap sways backwards and forwards, in the process driving two hydraulic pistons which push high pressure water onshore to drive a conventional hydroelectric turbine.
The demonstration will feature three 800-kilowatt flaps. Aquamarine Power claims that a small farm with 20 of its new Oyster devices can provide energy for more than 12,000 homes, compared with 20 units of its previous Oyster model which can only power approximately 9,000 homes. Installation begins by 2011.
Oceanflow Energy will boost the company’s deployment of its 35-kW Evopod tidal energy device. The device, a patent-protected semi-submerged floating platform and mooring system, generates electricity from free flowing tidal streams, river estuaries and ocean currents.
The Evopod will be installed in the Sand Sound off the South Kintyre coast in southwest Scotland next year and will be connected to the grid.
OpenHydro, in a tie-up with S.S.E. Renewables, received rights from the British Crown Estate in March to build a 200-MW tidal farm in Pentland Firth, off the northern coast of Scotland.
The Irish energy technology company holds records for being the first to deploy a tidal turbine at the European Marine Energy Center and as the first company to produce electricity from tidal streams and feed it to Britain’s grid.
“Our seas have unrivalled potential to generate clean, green energy and bring jobs, investment and know-how to Scotland. We have a quarter of Europe’s potential tidal energy resource and a tenth of the wave capacity,” said Jim Mather, Scottish energy minister.
Mr. Mather expects the grants to attract more private investment to help provide necessary capital for marine energy development, which normally entails high initial costs.
