UK: Development of EU Ocean Energy in Need of Greater Investment

Despite of the fast development of EU wave and tidal power technology due to the shortage of governmental financial support and that of big investors, considerable time will have to pass before this sector becomes a reliable source of energy, Eur Activ informs.

According to renewables manager at UK consultancy Douglas Westwood, Frank Wright: “The big industrial players getting involved is what is needed to move this sector forward. Utilities are looking at these kind of projects, which will be on a similar scale to wind energy or conventional power plants”.

The initial forecast was that by 2020 the investments will raise up to €8.5 billion resulting in 3.6 gigawatts generation capacity. However, even though many investors recognized the potential of the new budding industry such as Siemens and Vattenfal, projecting that the marine current renewables will cover up to 4 percent of global energy demand, many companies prefer to stick to other renewables.

Nevertheless, Vattenfall voiced its plans to purchase a UK wave power device later this year, hoping that an interconnector will be erected between the Shetland Islands and the Scottish mainland and Siemens increased its investments in UK developer Marine Current Turbines last month, expecting rise in annual growth rates for marine current renewables, up to double digits to 2020.

Still, large commercial projects are expected by 2016-2017 and the biggest challenge now is to move from 1 MW capacity of a tidal device to five-to-10 MW arrays, pushing to hundreds of megawatts by 2020. There is also the issue grid expansion capacity and setting up of control systems, because in order to attract investors costs of arrays must be reduced.

“We still need to prove a 10 MW array can function on a commercial basis and pay for itself by selling electricity,” Blair said.

Since March 2012, wave and tidal grid-connected capacity in the UK has jumped for 90% and equals now to 5.6 MW. Nevertheless, by connecting seven new devices RenewableUK forecasts that this year we will see a rise to 11 MW.

Based on the data of the UK’s Carbon Trust the constant price per unit of energy for an investment to break even, are 0.38-0.48 pounds/KWh for wave energy and 0.29-0.33 pounds/KWh for tidal, compared with 0.09-0.10 pounds/KWh for nuclear and offshore wind.

[mappress]

Offshore WIND staff, March 28, 2012; Image: severntidal