CATAPULT WAVE VERSUS TIDAL
WORLD LEADERS
Let’s not forget, though, we are the world leader in developing wave power, just as we used to be a world leader in developing wind power, before insufficient demand and investors in the industry saw other countries, particularly in Scandinavia, overtake us. So we must act now to ensure this doesn’t happen to the wave power sector, and to ensure that we maximise the social and economic opportunities for the UK.
MAKING WAVE COMMERCIALLY VIABLE
Wave power devices operate in much more challenging conditions than wind and tidal turbines, and so more needs to be done to the devices themselves to prove the technology and ensure they are reliable enough to withstand harsh sea conditions over a number of years. Proving that the energy to weight ratios delivered by wave devices can deliver electricity at a commercial price that is acceptable to investors to attract them to the industry.
We’ve progressed quickly to testing large scale wave machines, but deploying just one or two of these machines at test centres like EMEC in Orkney can run to tens of millions of pounds. And to fully prove new wave technologies, you need to deploy them in arrays large enough to achieve scale and properly assess performance capability. This is an important, but even more expensive, step.
FUTURE SUCCESS
We need device developers to focus on improving the devices themselves, and getting the technology right to convert wave power into electricity. The Catapult’s role will be to work with them and others, particularly academia, to focus research priorities around wider critical path components which have less to do with a developer’s intellectual property, and more to do with issues around reliability, health and safety, installation methodology, and electrical connections.
PROVING VIABILITY
Ultimately, to prove the viability of wave power, we need to see bigger devices in the water, and more of them. Our aim, as a nation, should be to establish a wave device test array. For all new technologies, this is a necessary step to prove the technology works and is commercially viable.
STARK CHOICE?
With marine technology, people often think it’s a stark choice. Is it tidal, or is it wave?
I think there is room for both. The science is sufficiently developed to show that there is potential for extracting energy from waves, and so we should all – industry, academia and government – be working towards this goal, whilst at the same time working hard to improve the technology of the devices themselves.
The more you can resolve some of the basic issues that developers come up against time and time again, the less risky and more attractive wave projects will become to investors.
Andrew Jamieson CEO Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
Andrew Jamieson
www.wavetidalenergynetwork.co.uk
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