Bristol has become a fantastic centre for innovation and applied research. The concentration of aerospace, marine engineering and high tech companies backed by a vibrant commercial and financial centre make the city a natural meeting point for technology developers and investors, making it well place to take advantage of the opportunities that the growing offshore sector will offer.
With some of the world’s most significant marine resources on our doorstep, and a long history of innovation and engineering excellence, it is natural that Bristol and the South West will play a key role in developing and supporting the offshore energy sector.
Bristol is home to a number of world-leading marine energy technology developers, academic institutions and companies who are at the forefront of this emerging sector. As a hub for technology development, with a strong advanced engineering, financial and professional service sectors, Bristol has become a natural meeting point for innovators and investors. It is therefore well placed to act as a ‘gateway’ to commercialise new technology enabling the fledgling marine energy sector to grow into a global industry.
This document draws on various assessments and reports relating to marine energy in the Bristol Channel. The Bristol Channel is a complex hydrodynamic system which supports a wide range of marine habitats, communities and economics interests, as well as providing a major sea transport route into the UK. This discussions paper proposes an alternative ‘balanced multi technology approach’ which has been developed from an on-going dialogue with industry though the Bristol Tidal Energy Forum and South West Marine Energy Park, as well as input from a number of economic and environmental stakeholders.
During the first decade of the 21st Century the World faces spread concern for global warming caused by rise of green house gasses produced mainly by combustion of fossil fuels. Under this latest spin all renewable energies run parallel in order to achieve sustainable development. Among them wave energy has an unequivocal potential and technology is ready to enter the market and contribute to the renewable energy sector. Yet, frameworks and regulations for wave energy development are not fully ready, experiencing a setback caused by lack of understanding of the interaction of the technologies and marine environment, lack of coordination from the competent Authorities regulating device deployment and conflicts of maritime areas utilization. The EIA within the consent process is central in the realization of full scale devices and often is the meeting point for technology, politics and public. This paper presents the development of a classification of wave energy converters that is based on the different impact the technologies are expected to have on the environment. This innovative classification can be used in order to simplify the scoping process for developers and authorities.
The choice of which type of electrical power generation technology to adopt is driven by a number of factors including: cost of generated electricity; responsiveness of generating plant to demand; security of supply/resource availability; environmental impact; and execution risk. Within these, tidal energy is unique as a renewable technology since it has the capability of providing predictable, firm power contributing to security of supply. This predictability gives tidal energy additional value in a future electricity market. Especially one where stochastic renewable technologies contribute to a sizable component of the power supplied; and where reserve capacity is required to maintain supply during periods of non-availability. In the shorter term, in order for tidal energy to gain commercial acceptance, tidal technologies under development need to produce electricity at a competitive price. This paper examines the drivers influencing electricity pricing; current tidal energy developments, aimed at reducing capital costs; and bench-mark these against offshore wind.
Acknowledgement: The article was identified by Tethys. For more information visit their website at https://mhk.pnnl.gov/wiki/index.php/Knowledge_Base
This leaflet aims to summarise the key areas of support available through Invest NI for early stage companies.
This paper provides an overview of the UKERC technology roadmap and its proposed internationalization. It describes a route for mobilizing the wave and tidal energy community down a deployment pathway towards targets in 2020. The roadmap is aimed at providing a focused and coherent approach to technology development in the ocean energy sector, whilst taking into account the needs of other stakeholders. The successful implementation of the technology roadmap depends upon a number of complex interactions between commercial, political and technical aspects. Although this roadmap is technically focused it also considers policy, environmental and commercialization aspects of the ocean energy sector, in order to display and put in context the influences of these externalities.
Parliamentary Select Committee proceedings on an inquiry into Wave and Tidal Energy in January 2001.
This document is a development and expansion of the findings and recommendations of the UKERC Marine (Wave and Tidal Current) Renewable Energy Technology Roadmap 1 produced in 2008, with a specific focus on how this relates to the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). An early version of this work and preliminary prioritisation rankings were critiqued by marine energy sector stakeholders at a European Commission Strategic Energy Technology Information System (SETIS) workshop on Ocean Energy in January 2009. The high-level outputs were also discussed during the development of DECC’s Marine Action Plan Technology Roadmap theme.
It identifies the key technology and deployment issues faced by the marine energy sector in the UK, and provides initial prioritisation of these issues from the perspective of the Energy Technologies Institute. It includes a timeline for UK Marine Energy Deployment Strategy and technology development targets until 2050.
Shows the results obtained from an EU wide survey of site and device developers. The stakeholders questionnaire was designed to determine what type of regulatory procedures site and device developers have gone through in developing their test site. The survey was aimed to gather EU-wide experience of the consenting process, with a particular focus on the way stakeholders were involved in the process and their concerns addressed. This document aims to present the reader with an overview of the experience to date in terms of consenting process and stakeholder engagement.
