ESRU

Growing a Marine Current Turbine Industry

Why a marine current turbine industry?

With the UK’s total tidal resources making up a huge proportion of the European resource and overall global resource, the UK is thus strategically positioned to develop a viable industry from the marine energy. Such an industry could be started with marine current turbines whose technology is very similar to wind turbines and later the industry diversifying into wave which has an even bigger resource. Also with the stage at which marine current turbine development has reached, it would be a readily available technology in the shortest possible time.

Scotland is home to about 40% of the total UK resource at its Pentland Firth channel alone making Scotland an ideal location to groom a UK industry. Aside Scotland’s excellent resource base, it has relevant strengths that can be tapped to establish an industry capable of developing into world leadership position.

Marine Current Resources

A lot of the studies have been done to assess UK’s tidal energy resources and similarly for other parts of the world. Most of these assessments have been generally site specific with the supporting assumptions such as peak spring tide velocities below which sites are excluded from the overall regional resource estimations and as well as device spacing configurations for typical installations in estimating extractable energy.

In most of these reports, sites with peak spring tide velocities above 1.5m/s have been considered to be viable for energy extraction. A 2d (twice the rotor diameter) lateral and 10d (ten times the rotor diameter) longitudinal device spacing configuration has been used. This configuration is generally accepted as the one that allows full recovery of the flow before it meets the next array of devices. However according to the Black and Veatch tidal stream resource report of 2004, this might not be the case for practical installations as local bathymetry and flow velocity conditions would dictate the precise location and spacing of the devices resulting in the reduction in the device density ar a given site and hence subsequently reducing the total extractable energy of the site.

The total UK resource is estimated to be approximately 110 TWh/year and the extractable resource approximately 22 TWh/year. The Pentland Firth area in Scotland accounts for 40% of the best resource sites whiles the Channel Islands have sites accounting for 25% of the extractable resources.

The non – UK European extractable resource has been estimated (by Joule 1996 program report) as approximately 17 TWh/year whereas the non - European global total resource has been estimated to be 600 TWh/year with the extractable component being 120 TWh/year.

Reference:

Choosing and Evaluating Sites for Tidal Current Developments by Ian Bryden and G Melville

The Exploitation of Tidal and Marine Current “Program Joule II” Report EUR 16683EN, No. JOU2 –CT93-D355

Tidal Stream Resource Report; Black and Veatch Report 2004.

Economical Benefits

Jobs

Scotland and for that matter UK will have a lot to gain from marine renewable industry using the experience of the Danish On-shore wind energy industry as a case study. It is predicted that such an industry would create 16000 – 24000 jobs by 2015 from the direct manufacture of turbines, operations of marine energy “farms” and other related service sector jobs. The Scottish Renewable Forum has researched this economical implications and its view on the economical benefits of a marine renewable industry is presented below:

‘ In 2001 the wind industry employed 50,000 people worldwide and built and installed 6GW of capacity with a turnover of $6bn (source: Danish Wind turbine manufacturers association). 8.33 jobs are currently supported for every $1m per MW of capacity produced per annum. (or to put it another way, for every $120,000 spent per year one job is supported). The wind industry has grown consistently over the past 15 years at a rate of some 30-40 % per annum. The key to Denmark’s success was providing an early ‘market pull’ mechanism which allowed the technology to be deployed in the market and compete against more mature technologies. As a result the Danish now have 50 % of the world market with an estimated 20,000 jobs in wind energy.

‘During this time the capital costs (and cost of production) of wind turbines has fallen rapidly. Fifteen years ago the cost of wind energy was over two-and-a-half times greater (Source: Vestas). With each MW costing some $2.5m, it can be assumed that early developments would have supported as many as 20 jobs per MW of annual production.

‘It is widely accepted that the wave industry is at a similar point to where wind was some 15 years ago with as big a market potential. However, the vastly heightened recognition of climate change means the industrial opportunities and potential for rapid growth are even greater than before. It is estimated that there is currently € 70m of investment and grant funding committed to the research, development and demonstration of marine energy prototypes over the coming 2-3 years. This initial investment alone will generate in excess of 600 man-years of employment between now and 2005.

Many wave power developers are seeking to develop the first commercial-scale schemes in the next 2-5 years, which will attract further investment (and support for jobs) from commercial partners. By 2010 it is estimated that several hundred MW of wave energy could be installed, which would support approximately 1000-1500 jobs per 100MW of capacity installed per annum. By 2015, if the wave power industry were to develop at the same rate as the wind industry, annual production could be several GW per year, with each GW of production supporting 6-8,000 direct jobs, which in turn would support a certain number of indirect jobs and services. If annual production reaches 6 GW per year by 2015 (as the wind industry has) this could support 36,000-48,000 direct jobs, of which a high proportion, perhaps 50 %, could be located in Scotland.

‘The challenge for Scotland will be to ensure that it captures most of this market and investment, particularly in the early stages. The lesson from Denmark is that an attractive tariff should be offered for early development (e.g. the first 50-100 MW) that allows commercial partners to take risks, finance projects and install machines. As production processes are optimised and the technology is developed this will create a virtuous circle of increasing numbers of machines sold at progressively lower cost (e.g. as in the computer, mobile phone, wind turbine industries etc).’

References:

Opportunity for marine energy in Scotland by Richard Boud, Scott Gerrard and Madeline Cowley, Future Energy Solutions, AEA Technology, November 2002.

Facilities Available to Support a Scottish Marine Renewable Industry

With Scotland being clearly among leading developers of both wave and tidal devices plus its various academic research institutions, Scotland has got the right footing in place to develop a successful industry. For example, to coordinate the various activities of European countries working in the wave energy sector, the European Thematic Network on Wave Energy was formed with various sub groups tasked with specific obligations. Edinburgh University in Scotland is a keep task participant for Task D which is in the research and development of wave energy devices. The overall project coordinators are AEA Technology plc also from the UK. Other Scottish universities are also keenly undertaking research in the field of marine energy.

SuperGen, a four – year marine energy collaborative consortium also involves Strathclyde, Edinburgh, Heriot Watt and Robert Gordon Universities all in Scotland together with twenty industrial partners. This clearly shows the immense support and contributions of the Scottish academic institutions and emphasizes how beneficial and major role they can play to the overall success of a marine energy industry.

In addition to that, a European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) has been set up in Orkney here in Scotland with its aims being to stimulate and accelerate the development of marine power devices, initially through the operation of a testing centre. The facilities comprises four test berths (connected by 11kV high voltage cables) each connected to a substation which is grid connected and rated at 7MW, an observation point and a weather station which aids in the collection of data.

Reference:

EMEC’s facilities in pictures (source www.emec.org.uk/pdf/doc4.pdf)