WAVE ENERGY NOW, TIDAL POWER LATER IN SCOTLAND

Aquamarine Scraps Tidal Power, Focuses on Waves
Jeff St. John, April 2, 2009 (Greentech Media)
and
Aquamarine to concentrate on wave power
Jeff Ranscombe, 2 April 2009 (The Scotsman)

SUMMARY
Aquamarine, a major Scottish ocean energy developer, has made the strategic decision to focus its entire efforts on wave energy and set aside its tidal power development until it achieves more financial stability.

The engineers in the company working on the Neptune tidal energy device will join the engineers working on the Oyster wave energy device.

Chosen. (click to enlarge)

The £40+ million earmarked over the next five years for Neptune will also be invested in Oyster, making it possible to keep the manufacturing of Oyster in Scotland rather than sending the work to Asia where labor is cheaper.

This decision is indicative of Aquamarine’s effort to manage its rapid growth (from 8 to 33 employees) over the last 6 months.

The decision to focus on Oyster instead of Neptune is because Oyster is a simpler device with little complicated or vulnerable technology. It is essentially a big floating hinge, two hydraulic water pistons and four valves. By contrast, Neptune is significantly more complex and subject to problems.

Set aside. (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
This is another indication of how difficult it is to build energy-generating devices sturdy enough to endure the ocean. Pelamis Wave Power was recently forced to tow its 750-kilowatt wave energy devices launched off the coast of Portugal last fall ashore for repairs.

A few months before, a Finavera Renewables wave energy buoy sank off the Oregon coast, leading the California Public Utility Commission to deny PG&E’s permit to further test wave energy technology.

Oyster could be a better bet. Unlike the Pelamis and Finavera devices, it does not float vulnerably in tempestuous ocean waters 60-to-100 meters deep but sits on the ocean floor in more protected harbors at 10-meter depths.

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Results of a full-system onshore test of Oyster are expected presently.

First ocean tests will come in Summer 2009 at the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) in Stromness on the west coast of Scotland’s Orkney Islands.

Aquamarine expects Oyster to be commercially available by 2014 in 100-megawatt arrays.

Neptune is a stepchild to Aquamarine, acquired as the result of a 2007 merger with mega-utility Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) subsidiary Renewable Technology Ventures.

The decision to set aside Neptune in favor of Oyster does not affect Aquamarine’s agreement with SSE subsidiary Airtricity to produce a GIGAWATT of ocean energy by 2020.

There's potential all over Europe. (click to enlarge)

Martin McAdam, Aquamarine’s CEO, has said Oyster’s strength is in its simplicity. He called it "very unsophisticated" and "a big dumb machine" and, therefore, a better bet to bring to market sooner and with fewer surprises.

McAdam described Neptune as a "wind turbine that operate[s] underwater" and therefore more vulnerable to the harsh ocean environment.

Though there is little installed hydrodynamic (wave, tidal and current) energy capacity in the world at present, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) estimated U.S. wave and tidal power potential could be as much as 10 gigawatts by 2025 and another study found world potential could be 1 gigawatt as early as 2015.

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QUOTES
- Martin McAdam, CEO, Aquamarine: "We had a strategy review with our board and looked at how we could get our company to be a commercial business in the shortest possible time frame…We're much closer commercially with Oyster and so decided to deploy all our resources to wave technology and accelerate that area…We had a big challenge in taking two technologies forward simultaneously. We can see that the quickest path to commercialising technology is to take forward Oyster. It's easier for shareholders to see how they can get a return more quickly."
- McAdam, Aquamarine: "We've designed Oyster here, we're engineered it here, built the test rig here, we're testing it at EMEC for real this summer – when we start manufacturing them, why should I send the plans to Korea or China? It makes no sense."