Marine Energy

The Economist looks at British investment in wave power energy facilities:

British sea power
Sep 20th 2007

"The British have always looked to the sea to protect them from the earth's dangers. The ocean is a handy deterrent to foreign armies, but it is useful for other things too. In the midst of the energy crisis of the 1970s, there was much talk that marine energy would let its possessors break free of OPEC. With the arrival of North Sea oil, marine energy was forgotten. But 35 years later, with North Sea oil in decline, climate change a big issue and wind farms facing lengthy planning delays, sea power is back on the agenda.

On September 17th the government announced that planning permission had been given for Wave Hub, a £28m project off the north Cornish coast that will provide a sea-floor “socket” allowing wave-power generators to get their electricity back to shore. The South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA), a quango which will part-fund the project, has high hopes. Four firms are planning to connect their machines, forming what officials hope will be the world's biggest wave farm, with 30 machines supplying up to 20 megawatts of power. An existing wave-power project in the Orkney islands is set to expand, and officials are studying a multi-billion-pound private-sector plan to harness the tides near the mouth of the river Severn.

Marine energy, and especially wave power, is still an immature technology. Many designs concentrate on surviving the fury of ocean storms rather than maximising energy production. Nor is it cheap. Firms are coy about giving precise figures but the Carbon Trust, a government-funded green consultancy, reckoned the price a year ago was between 22p and 25p per kilowatt hour—around nine times the price of gas-fired electricity.

Boosters argue that technology and mass production will bring costs down. British officials seem to agree. Having noticed the success of the Danes in developing their wind-turbine industry, both the SWRDA and the Scottish Executive want to do the same for ocean power.

Geography is one advantage: rough seas and big tides make the British isles one of the best places in the world for sea power. The Carbon Trust believes that, in theory, sea power could provide 20% of the country's electricity. There is engineering expertise, notably in Aberdeen, where the offshore oil industry has been installing complex machinery in rough seas for decades. The International Energy Agency thinks that Britain is pursuing more marine-power designs (29) than any other country (America, with 13, is second). Scotland already boasts the European Marine Energy Centre, a research outfit, an advantage the West Country hopes to counteract by spending £15m on a similar organisation attached to the universities of Exeter and Plymouth.

The economics are more complicated. David Weaver, the chief executive of Oceanlinx, one of the firms planning to use the Wave Hub, argues that Britain's liberalised and transparent power markets make life easier for newcomers, although others argue that fluctuating power prices make planning tricky. Subsidies are more generous in countries such as Portugal, which is keen on building a marine-power sector of its own and offers extra cash to less mature technologies.

Not everyone is enthusiastic. When the Wave Hub was announced, Cornish surfers worried that it might make their tubes less gnarly. Others are more concerned about the price. Mr Edge reckons that the Danes spent around £1 billion creating their wind-turbine industry. Setting up a British marine-power sector will cost a similar amount, he says—a big jump from the £28m Wave Hub."