It was announced recently by the Department for Energy and Climate Change in the UK that Scotland’s Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters have been designated as Scotland’s first Marine Energy Park.
The announcement marks the strategic importance of marine energy to the future economy of the north of Scotland. The Pentland and Orkney Waters already feature the European Marine Energy Centre where wave and tidal energy device testing is underway. The award acknowledges the many years’ work that has been put in to develop the region.
Fergus Ewing, Scottish Energy Minister, said: “We have committed over £30 million through WATES and WATERS schemes and investment at EMEC, and we are still continuing to invest in the sector with the £18 million Marine Renewables Commercialisation Fund created to accelerate the development and deployment of commercial arrays.”
The cost of increasing wave and tidal energy is much higher than other renewables however, according to a report by Reuters it could fall by over half to current offshore wind levels by 2020-2025. Energy from waves or tides has the potential to generate 27GW of power in the UK alone by 2050.
