BRITS ANNOUCE BIG OCEAN ENERGY BUILD

'World's first' commercial wave and tidal energy projects planned for Scotland; The world’s first wave and tidal energy projects on a commercial scale are to be built off the Scottish coast, with developers claiming they have the potential to power 750,000 homes.
Simon Johnson, 16 March 2010 (UK Telegraph)

"The Crown Estate announced 10 schemes capable of generating up to 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of electricity would be built around the Orkney Islands and on the Pentland Firth, off the northern coast of the Scottish mainland.

"They are expected to cost £4 billion to install and will require up to £1 billion more of taxpayers’ money to build new grid connections, harbours and other structural facilities in Orkney and Caithness…[T]he power companies awarded the contracts insisted their 2020 completion date…[is feasible]…"

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"Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, said the announcement confirmed his prediction that Scotland will become the ‘Saudi Arabia of marine energy’ thanks to the strong tides and currents off its coast…Roger Bright, chief executive of the Crown Estate, said the 10 projects have the capacity to generate four times the electricity of Scotland’s former nuclear power station at Dounreay in Caithness…

"The Crown Office announced the successful bidders for the projects after receiving bids from 20 companies for 42 sites…Six sites have been allocated for wave energy developments potentially generating 600 megawatts (MW) of power and four for tidal projects, also generating 600 MW."

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"Three major power firms, E.ON, Scottish and southern Energy (SSE) Renewables, which already operates the UK's largest hydro schemes, and Scottish Power Renewables will [spearhead] the larger of the 10 schemes…Some are in conjunction with leading marine energy firms, who will also develop two smaller schemes on their own.

"Pelamis Wave Power will build a wave power scheme in the Pentland Firth capable of generating 50MW and also work with SSE and Scottish Power at three other 50MW sites…SSE has also chosen OpenHydro tidal machines built by Cantick Head Tidal for a 200MW development…Aquamarine will build a new version of its Oyster wave power machine for a 200MW station for SSE…SeaGen tidal machines…will be installed…[at] a 100MW site…"