Five marine energy developers are to benefit from £7.9 million in funding to develop the testing of new wave and tidal prototypes in Scottish waters.
The second round of WATERS (Wave & Tidal Energy: Research, Development & Demonstration Support) funding is to enable Scottish developers and supply chain firms to capture an increased share of the growing international marine energy market, which could be worth up to £4 billion to Scotland’s economy by 2020.
Scotrenewables Tidal Power has been awarded a £1.2 million grant towards a £9.24 million project to design, construct and install a two-megawatt SR 2000 commercial-scale floating tidal turbine. AlbaTERN has been awarded £617,000 towards a £1.3 million project cost of deploying the WaveNET demonstrator array comprising six SQUID 7.5kW wave energy converters. AWS Ocean Energy has been granted £3.9 million towards a £15.6 million project cost of designing, building and launching the stages of a project to prove the AWS-III WEC at full scale.
Nautricity will build and test a full-scale, pre-commercial CoRMaT 500kW tidal turbine, and has been awarded a £1.4 million grant towards a £4.9 million total project cost. Oceanflow Development will build and field-test a quarter-scale prototype twin-turbine tidal energy converter, Evopod TE70, and has been granted £750,000 towards a £1.3 million total project cost.
Commenting on the news, Scotland’s deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “Ambitious clean-tech developers such as Scotrenewables Tidal Power, and the prototypes they are developing are testament to how far the marine renewables sector has progressed in just a few years.
"The Scottish Government is very pleased to be supporting these five exciting wave and tidal projects through this funding. The WATERS 2 funding sends a further clear signal that Scotland—already blessed with some of the world’s greatest concentrations of marine energy resource and with unrivalled offshore energy engineering expertise—will continue to provide the optimum research and investment environment for developers and commercial partners.
“By supporting a range of wave and tidal technologies at various stages of development towards commercialisation and the goal of large-scale sea-powered electricity generation, we can stimulate innovation, investment, job creation and help protect the planet for future generations.”
WATERS is a collaborative venture between the Scottish government, Scottish Enterprise, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, with funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). During the initial round of WATERS funding in 2010, four marine energy projects across Scotland were awarded £6 million.
