SCOTS BID BIG FOR WATER ENERGY

Scottish Government awards £13m to marine energy projects
6 July 2010 (Greenwise)

"The Scottish Government…unveiled five marine energy projects that are to share £13 million worth of development funding to harness energy from Scotland’s waters…through WATERS, the Wave and Tidal Energy: Research, Development and Demonstration Support programme. They include one of the world's largest wave stations being developed off the Western Isles by RWE npower renewables and a doughnut-shaped wave energy converter being tested in Lock Ness by AWS Ocean Energy…"

[Jim Mather, Energy Minister, Scotland:] "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 – a resource already drawing developers and innovators to Scotland's seas…These grants will help attract further private investment."

The RWE npower renewables Wavegen (click to enlarge)

"The biggest grant – £6 million worth – has been awarded to RWE to support construction of a 10 turbine, four megawatt (MW) project off the Western Isles called Siadar…Aquamarine Power has also benefited from £3.15 million of funding to support demonstration of its Oyster 3 project at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney…[and] AWS Ocean Energy which is scale testing its AWS-III wave energy device, a doughnut-shaped, multi-cell surface-floating wave power system, in Loch Ness and the Cromarty Firth has received a £1.39 million grant…"

AWS on Loch Ness (click to enlarge)

"A single utility-scale AWS-III, measuring around 60 metres in diameter, will be capable of generating up to 2.5 MW of continuous power…AWS is now seeking industrial and utility partners to enable the launching of a 12-cell, 2.5 MW pre-commercial demonstrator in 2012 and subsequent commercialisation of the technology.

"Two other companies also received funding…OpenHydro, which is developing a power conversion / control system to deliver a cost effective method of connecting marine energy devices in tidal array, won £1.85 million…[and] Ocean Flow Energy, which is building the 'Evopod', a 35-kilowatt floating grid connected tidal energy turbine at Sanda Sound in South Kintyre, received £560,000."