future
potential
CLEAN ENERGy
Go with the flow
THE UK’S waves
The UK Government has set a target of obtaining programme designed to improve understanding of marine
15 per cent of its energy from clean sources by 2020, and power technologies. Under the scheme, eight wave power
and Tidal
the Scottish Nationalist Government an ambitious 50 per cent. technology developers worked with leading offshore
With the creation of the Department of Energy and Climate engineering and power generation consultants, including
cUrrenTs HAvE
Change in October 2008, it’s clear that they have every Atkins, to put their innovations to the test. This programme
intention of meeting them. also provided the start-up firms taking part with valuable
THE POTENTIAL
With 11,072 miles of coastline, the UK has considerable access to engineering expertise, essential in the successful
potential to generate some of this energy from wave and deployment of reliable power generation installations.
TO GENERATE UP
tidal power, and Government funding should speed up the Following the results of the Marine Energy Challenge, the
commercialisation of the technologies involved. Carbon Trust is confident that marine energy has the potential
TO 20 PER CENT
Furthermore, the UK has become an international to become competitive with other generation forms in future.
trail-blazer in marine and tidal power technology, with around However, it also raised a major short-term challenge: cost.
OF ITS TOTAL
50 per cent of the world’s marine power patents coming “To turn this potential into a commercial reality, marine
from the UK. needs sustained additional funding to accelerate its
44
ELECTRICITy.
How much progress has been made so far in capturing breakthrough into the mainstream of energy generation
that energy? “We’re about where the Wright brothers were,” sources,” says Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust.
A simple and
says Neil Kermode, managing director of the Orkney-based “Fast learning or a step change cost reduction is needed to
European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), the world’s first make offshore wave energy converters cost competitive for
UniqUe
dedicated test site for wave and tidal power technology. reasonable amounts of investment,” stated the Carbon Trust in
“In other words, we have the research machines working, but a recent report, Future Marine Energy.
invenTion
have a huge way to go before we reach the equivalent of In other words, current wave power technologies are simply
modern aviation. However, like the Wright brothers, we have too expensive.
COULD HELP TO
demonstrated to the world that the principles are sound.”
Sea snake
HARNESS IT.
Hotbed of innovation To address this issue, Atkins’ Rainey is working to create
“Much of the groundwork on the theoretical side of marine cheaper, more reliable forms of marine power. He has already
power was conducted back in the 1970s, when fears about played a key role in the independent verification of the current
rising oil prices first prompted interest in unlocking the power trail-blazer in wave power technology, Pelamis – in particular,
of the sea,” says Atkins’ Rod Rainey, who has played a key role helping to overcome the challenge of metal fatigue.
in developing marine energy technology for three decades. Alongside his advisory role, Rainey teamed up with
Two visionary and tenacious people were especially renowned British physicist Professor Francis Farley to create
important in making this progress, adds Kermode: “Professor Anaconda, a radical new model for marine power generation
Stephen Salter at Edinburgh University and Peter Fraenkel, that has the backing of the Carbon Trust. Whereas past devices
founder of Marine Current Turbines, established the concept tended to be heavily engineered and complicated, Anaconda
of marine energy in the public consciousness.” is simplicity itself.
Salter designed a revolutionary wave power device in 1974, “I sought to design something that would be cheap and
while Fraenkel began exploring ways to convert water currents maintenance free,” Rainey explains. The outcome was a water-
into electricity at around the same time. filled rubber tube, around 200 metres long, designed to surf
More recently, the Carbon Trust has been a key champion the currents just beneath the ocean surface.
of marine power innovation in the UK. Throughout 2004 and Large groups of the tubes would sit off the coastline,
2005, the organisation ran the Marine Energy Challenge, a attached to the seabed by chains. As the passing ocean swell
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