Marine Energy, Scotland and the EU Professor Ian Bryden Chair of Renewable Energy The University of Edinburgh

The European Capability Serious interest in marine renewable energy starting in Europe in the 1970s, especially: –Edinburgh (Salter) –Lisbon (Falcao) –Trondheim (Falnes) –…. 1974: Initial experiments on the Duck Industry and commerce are now development a marine renewable industry but vital new understanding is still being developed in the Universities

Academic Capabilities

The “accepted” model of development

MARINE MW to market £/MW RDDD Scottish Enterprise The “Learning Curve” MARINE

Pace of Development Full scale prototype devices are installed and tested Marine Energy is moving towards commercial viability

The Wave Resource The North Atlantic acts as an immense collector of wind energy Resource is massive and largely forecastable

The Tidal Resource The form of the North Atlantic Coast and the North Sea and other European basins result in complex tidal distributions The tidal resource is extreme, localised and predicable Pentland Firth

Technology Development Requires detailed understanding at the design stages Requires detailed assessment at the prototype stages Testing at EMEC and other test sites such as those in Portugal and Ireland, Closure of the design/development/deployment loop

The EMEC Wave Test Site 2km from shore 50m water depth Four berths Atlantic waves regime 25kW/m + energy level 20m+ peak wave

The EMEC Tidal Test Site 5 Berths 10-50m Grid connected 3.5m/s flow Sheltered area Available since 2007

Marine Energy Resource Theoretical resource: Energy contained in the entire marine resource. Technical resource: The proportion of the theoretical resource that could be exploited Practical resource: The proportion of the technical resource that can be exploited after consideration of external constraints The values of each of these is gradually being assessed

How Much Energy? Wave* –Technical resource in Europe likely to exceed 50GW installed capacity (this is still a matter of informed conjecture) Tidal Current –Technical European resource likely to exceed 25GW installed capacity (this is a matter of often misguided conjecture) Even cautious estimates such as these suggest major opportunities for development *Extrapolated from the Carbon Trust Report “Future Marine Energy (Results of the Marine Energy Challenge: Cost competitiveness and growth of wave and tidal stream energy)”

Conclusions The European and Scottish wave and tidal current resource is massive and represents an appreciable proportion of demand There are no “showstoppers” in terms of environmental and technical constraints Scottish research, development and implementation capability is at the forefront of the new European industry

A suggestion! A Forum for open communication on generic difficulties facing developers in the marine renewable sector. Should include the very best expertise from the broader marine sector, such as: –Testing organisations –Academia –Trade associations It should be outward looking but primarily directed to the building of a marine renewable industry

The Marine Renewable Forum Should not be: –Yet another lobbying organisation –Linked to any other organisation –A consultancy organisation Should be: –Able to facilitate and broker the exchange of generic knowledge between developers, researchers, test centres, public and private bodies –A net benefit to the sector and not “yet another layer of bureaucracy”