UK: Wave Hub Hails Support for Wave, Tidal Projects

July 25, 2012

Wave Hub has welcomed a UK Government announcement that will see financial support for wave and tidal stream technologies more than double from next year.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change confirmed today that it will increase support for wave and tidal stream projects from two Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) to five per megawatt hour, up to a maximum of 30MW per project from 2013 to 2017.

The Renewables Obligation is the main mechanism for supporting large-scale renewables in the UK.

Claire Gibson, general manager at Wave Hub, which is a 20MW testing facility for wave energy devices off the north coast of Cornwall in the UK, said: “This is excellent news and a big boost for Wave Hub and the development of marine renewables in South West England.

“Wave and tidal developers have been calling for a regime which provides investors with a clear signal that they will get a return on their investment, and that’s what today’s announcement does. In practice it means deployment at Wave Hub is now even more attractive because we already have a consented and operational site, and now there will be a much greater level of financial support available from April next year.”

The announcement was also welcomed by Cork-based Ocean Energy, which will be the first wave energy company to deploy at Wave Hub.

John McCarthy, chief executive and co-founder of Ocean Energy said: “The availability of this ROCs support is a vital part of the infrastructure necessary for the development of commercial wave energy farms. It has already been established that for wave technologies to achieve commercial maturity, support would be required from governments.

“We believe the best way to achieve this is by a combination of market push and market pull strategies. ROCs are an integral part of this market pull and a key enabler in allowing the industry to progress towards fully commercial multi-megawatt wave farms. Today’s announcement will significantly assist our own deployment at Wave Hub.”

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Offshore WIND staff, July 25, 2012; Image: Wave Hub