RenewableUK - Marine Renewable Energy

18th May - RenewableUK and the Energy Generation Supply Knowledge Transfer Network are organising a third supply chain workshop. Following on from the success of previous event in Inverness, this event will be held in Aberdeen on the 18th of May 2010, on the eve of All-Energy. For further information and to register, click here.

30th March - UK's first marine energy business park in Hayle; Government has confirmed investment of 5 million towards the 12.8 million project, for further information click here.

23rd March – Scottish Enterprise launch 12 million competition via the wave and tidal energy research, development and demonstration support fund (WATERS), for further information click here.

10th March – RenewableUK launches The Next Steps for Marine Energy - An Industry View on the Marine Energy Action Plan Executive Summary. To view a full press release click here. The document can also be downloaded here.

10th March – The Crown Estate Launches an unprecedented 1.2GW of wave and tidal energy projects in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Strategic Area. SSE Renewables and Scottish Power Renewables were leading the charge with a join cumulative capacity of 900MW of leases awarded. Aquamarine Power, Pelamis Wave Power, Marine Current Turbines and Open Hydro were amongst the technology developers named in the announcements. For further details click here.

9th March – RenewableUK welcomes the launch of the Marine Energy Action Plan Executive Summary; the document which has been driven with RenewableUK’s balanced industry opinion announced that a Ministerial Task Force on Marine Energy will be established. For further details click here.

8th March - The TSB have launched £9 million funding call. The deadline for submissions is the 29th of April. To view further details please click here. To view a list of companies able to carry out an independent validation as requested by the TSB for Strand 2 click here

4 March 2010 RenewableUK Wave & Tidal Conference
Over 460 delegates attended the world’s largest wave and tidal conference. Session focused on finance, insurance, major project delivery and a panel debate discussing the Marine Action Plan. Full proceedings, including video recordings can be viewed here.

3 March 2010 – Technical Tools for Marine Renewable Project Development
RenewableUK responded to member demand to obtain greater understanding of the advances in Marine Renewable Project development by organising its first event dedicated to marine renewable project development. Over 80 individuals attended the seminar, which included very interactive Q&A sessions throughout. For further details click here.

10 February - BWEA has provided consistent messaging over the past year to the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to encourage continued support for wave and tidal energy. After at least 3 months of industry consultation the TSB (with assistance from SWRDA) has announced an expertly targeted fund of £12 million will complement the MPRF and aims to help quicken pace of innovation in wave and tidal technologies. The fund will be launched in two competitions; the first will be launched on the 8th of March totals £9 million (£2 million investment from SWRDA) and focuses on driving down the costs of energy and improving reliability. The second is due to be opened in September will total £3 million and will focus on monitoring, reliability, instillation and maintainability of devices. An update and more detailed information is expected at BWEA’s annual Wave and tidal conference on the 4th of March. For further information please visit the Technology Strategy Board website.

2 February 2010 – Marine Renewable Proving Fund Announcement
BWEA congratulates the Carbon Trust on keeping to a strict deadline for determining the winners of the £22 million fund which has a spend deadline of March 2011. Following rigorous and very competitive assessment process, the Carbon Trust selected six projects; four tidal technologies (Atlantis Resources, Hammerfest Strom UK, Marine Current Turbines and Voith Hydro) and two wave technologies (Pelamis Wave Power and Aquamarine Power) to receive grants ranging from £2 to £5.2 million. It is hoped that these new projects will increase certainty around technical performance trigger increased confidence in the sector. For further details please click here.

The second supply chain event attracted over 100 personnel from a variety of industries. For further information click here.

30th October 2009 - ETI announce Performance Assessment of Wave and Tidal Array Systems (PerAWaT). An 8 million project led by Garrad Hassan, and in collaboration with EDF Energy, EON, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Oxford, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Manchester. For further information click here.

27 October 2009

BWEA State of the Industry: Marine Renewables Report.
A cutting edge report completed by Entec for BWEA, that highlights the state of the industry in the UK. The report covers financing and funding, future predictions of installed capacity and cost reductions, as well as recommendations to government and industry on how to secure a successful marine renewables sector within the UK. Headlines include the requirement for a stronger market pull mechanism and that the UK is still leading the world in marine renewables Click here to view the report (PDF format).

22nd September 2009 - Marine Renewables Proving Fund.
BWEA applauds the government for announcing the 22M Marine Renewable Proving Fund and welcomes the Technology Strategy Board's plans to step up their support of wave and tidal R&D. BWEA have been working tirelessly to identify and fill these funding gaps over the past years and is pleased that industry views, communicated through the BWEA, have now been acted on. BWEA are committed to developing the government's new 'Marine Action Plan' to drive the industry forward. For further details from the Carbon Trust on the fund please click here.

15th July 2009 - The Government launched the Renewable Energy Strategy and the Low Carbon Industries Strategy. These documents included excellent news with a total of £60 million (roughly 15% of the £405mill) of funding dedicated to the marine renewables industry. The highlights are:

The Government has dedicated to work with the sector to develop a Marine Action Plan by the end of this year. - The Action Plan will provide a basis for considering the framework of support for the deployment of wave and tidal stream technologies going forward.

The Government will invest up to £60 million in UK marine energy infrastructure and technology, including wave and tidal energy testing centres. This will include:

In addition, the Government will launch a Marine Renewables Proving Fund (MRPF) which will provide up to £22 million of grant funding for the testing and demonstration of pre-commercial wave and tidal stream devices. This will accelerate wave and tidal technologies towards commercial demonstration and assist the development of successful projects under the Marine Renewables Deployment Fund (MRDF)

The Government also intends to retain the MRDF or a similar instrument and extend its operation to cover new devices reaching demonstration stage in the period 2011–2014.

May 2009 The benefits of marine technologies within a diversified renewables mix – a report commissioned by the BWEA, conducted by Redpoint Energy, concluded that diversifying the renewable energy mix by including a greater proportion of wave and tidal stream energy would reduce requirements for back-up and reserve capacity, lower carbon emissions and save fuel. This could lead to cost savings of as much as 3.3% of the annual wholesale cost of electricity due to the increased mix diversity.
Click here to view the report (PDF format).

Over 450 people attended BWEA's sixth annual, and the world's largest, event dedicated to wave and tidal energy, sponsored by the South West RDA. Click here for full details of the 2009 event. BWEA Wave & Tidal 2010 will take place on 4th March 2010 at the QEII Centre in London - further information on the 2010 event is available here.

29th April 2009 Supply Chain Seminar - The event sponsored by NaREC was the first event dedicated to securing the Marine Renewables Supply Chain. The event organised in response to BWEA member feed back involved technology and project developers from all areas of the supply chain. The seminar, hosted over 60 delegates from a wide range of industries discussing the common goal of maintaining the UK’s strong lead in this rapidly developing industry. The popularity of the event was evident by the room being full to capacity. For further information please click here.

5 November 2008 The Carbon Trust's Marine Energy Accelerator (MEA) aims to accelerate progress in cost reduction of marine energy (wave and tidal stream energy) technologies, to bring forward the time when marine energy becomes cost-competitive so that significant carbon emissions reductions are achieved. Click here for more information.

Why Marine? Following from the huge popularity of 'Why Wind?' BWEA has produced a similar booklet intended to raise awareness of wave and tidal stream energy development around the UK. Click on the image to download in PDF format.

July 2008 A BWEA 'Global Opportunity' presentation was given both to BERR at the last Marine Strategy Group meeting and to the Seawork 08 Conference http://www.seawork.com The presentation outlined the global view, UK advantage, 2008 technology deployment, ideas for government support, the commercial opportunities and benefits to UK plc. The presentation can be viewed here (PDF format).