Ocean energy

WAVE AND
TIDAL ENERGY
Its Emergence and the Challenges it Faces

Like a new frontier for power generation, wave and tidal enced currently have somewhat mitigated
technologies have attracted considerable attention in the past earlier forecasts although upside potential
is important, with many as yet unan-
six months, with the industry finally emerging from a long and nounced projects expected to emerge as the
uncertain period of embryonic development. As the industry is period progresses.
maturing, it is important not to forget the difficulty in balancing
industry prospects with the many obstacles along the way. Early growth in UK
In the future, continued growth is expected
Benoit Dal Ferro, Douglas-Westwood Ltd reports. and the Carbon Trust expects that most of
the early growth is likely to occur in the
UK. This is no surprise as the country ben-

I
ndeed, whilst considerable uncertainty 80MW in 2011, subject to time-keeping efits from one of the largest practical
remains, the global wave and tidal and survival of installed units. The still pre- resources in Europe: around 50TWh/y for
resource may be grossly estimated as commercial status of most devices is associ- offshore wave and 18TWh/y for tidal
respectively 1 and 1.5 times the world con- ated with high up-front cost due to tech- power, equivalent to around 18% of the
sumption. Most of this resource is current- nology development, limited project size country’s electricity consumption. As the
ly technically inaccessible or located far and the difficulty of finding investors for UK is increasingly reliant on foreign gas
away from human settlements; hence only these 'high-risk' ventures. However, the and 17m people live within 10km of the
10 to 25% of electricity may be realistical- past six months have seen tremendous coast - notwithstanding 40% of British
ly generated by wave and tidal. However, anticipation in the sector with new projects industry - tapping into marine energy is an
we believe the investment required to being frequently announced: delays experi- important prospect. With several projects
extract this power from the oceans would
exceed £600 billion, a figure similar to
Airbus forecasted sales of new passenger
and freighter aircraft for the next twenty
years - a very substantial opportunity.
(Figures 1 and 2)

By contrast, installed capacity worldwide

is still insignificant. The present sub-
10MW capacity is expected to reach nearly

Author information
Contact: Benoit Dal Ferro, Douglas-
Westwood Ltd, St Andrew's House,
Station Road East, Canterbury CT1
2WD, UK. Tel: +44 1227 781 098;
bdf@dw-1.com; www.dw-1.com Figure 1: Wave & tidal energy world cumulative capacity forecast by main generation type (2001-
2011).

46 reFOCUS May/June 2006 1471 0846/06 © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Figure 2: Wave & tidal energy world capacity forecast by country (2001-2011)
heading to the water such as, for example,
the 1MW Seagen device in Northern
Ireland, the Wave Dragon converter off
Milford Haven and a Tidal Lagoon off the
Welsh coast, momentum is building.
The UK has sent positive signals to the
industry with the establishment of an early-
stages planning and consent regulation for
marine renewables in November 2005.
Other important assets of the British indus-
try include the European Marine Energy
Centre (EMEC) based in Orkney - a certifi-
cation and testing organisation which will
open its tidal energy stream facility in 2006
and the Supergen Marine programme - a
university and research consortia dedicated
to tackling specific R&D barriers. Upkeep
has been important locally, with the
involvement of the Scottish Executive in
Orkney, NAREC testings in Blyth, and the
South West Renewable Development
Agency's "Wave Hub" project - an innova-
tive underwater socket which will allow
technology developers to share grid connec-
tion costs and ease developmental issues
such as planning consent.
Further to the completion of the Marine
Renewable Energy Challenge by the Carbon
Trust, the final report recommended that a
further £80 million should be invested in
R&D and development support in order to
speed up cost reduction and attract the
£100-200 million in private investment
necessary to reach critical capacity. The
study concludes that by 2020, the tidal
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Ocean energy
Mossel Bay. Even China, in light of surging
energy demand, is considering developing
its nearly 7,000GW tidal stream potential,
with the use of highly cost-effective Tidal
Electric's lagoon concept off Dandong City
in the Liaoning Province.
Challenges
The encouraging signs around the world
should not make us forget the very young
nature of the industry. From a UK perspec-
tive, assuming the Carbon Trust expecta-
tions are met in 2020, there are still numer-
ous barriers to overcome. Firstly, the indus-
try will have to hunt subsidies and early
investors unafraid of dealing with an
improving, yet incomplete regulatory
framework.
stream industry could represent about
2.5GWe or about 3% of the UK installed In the UK, the proposed Marine Bill is an
capacity for electricity generation, a total opportunity to address this issue through
investment of about £4 billion. the creation of a unified entity - a Marine
Agency - but it must provide an effective
Other prospects way of securing planning permission. As
However, it would be wrong to assume that Michael Hay, Marine Renewable
the sector is relying on the British contribu- Development Manager at the British Wind
tion alone. Increasingly, foreign nations are Energy Association stated, "it is vital that
building up capability and attracting proj- projects are able to enter the water as effi-
ects. Within the EU, the Scottish wave ciently as possible in areas that provide
energy converter Pelamis will be installed in excellent potential for power production."
Portugal where securing the £30 billion
local market has been granted a national Furthermore, wave and tidal projects will
priority status. In Ireland, the Marine have to access a shoreline grid which is
Institute/Sustainable Energy Ireland initia- mostly weak and congested. Identification
tive is establishing a 37-hectares wave ener- of point of entry through Distributed
gy test site a mile and a half off the coast of Generation planning tools currently funded
Spiddal, in County Galway. The Wavebob by the DTI Innovation Programme could
device has already arrived in Galway docks provide an answer. In addition, shared con-
to be deployed. nection through facilities such as the 'Wave
Hub' may ease the planning and sharply
Outside Europe, Australia is already reduce both costs and risk. However, the
building-up on its experience with the Port- significant difference between devices’ tar-
Kembla wave device, as manufacturer get locations may mean that there could be
Energetech is harvesting export leads. In the some difficulty in finding partners - in
US, Governor Ted Kulongoski, is pushing addition to the threat for effective projects
for a $3 million federal earmark to establish to share connection with less reliable
a national Wave Energy Research, devices.
Development and Demonstration Centre
whilst in Canada, feasibility studies are In the longer-term, joining the dots
under way to exploit the immense tidal between resource and demand for power
potential of the Bay of Fundy. In South will become the greatest issue. As the UK
Africa, Genesis Eco is considering the situation exemplified, about 79% of the
development of a 10MW pilot wave farm at tidal resource is located in the Pentland
a tag price of £20 million which could lead Firth and the Channel Islands whilst
to a further 30MW commercial farm in Carbon Trust studies shows that more than
May/June 2006 reFOCUS 47
 Ocean energy

83% of energy can be found below 40m - i.e. in the challenging

deep. For wave devices, most of the resource lies far offshore the
British coast whilst an important share of the energy is released
during the winter months - i.e. 45% between December and
February against only 12% between May and August. Overcoming
these barriers will require R&D but most importantly, substantial
cost reduction which can only be achieved through large-scale
deployment and industrial manufacturing.

Whereas support from the UK government is vital to the devel-

opment of the early-stage industry, the current £50 million Marine
Deployment Fund will not be sufficient to attract investors for
such a venture. The Fund is only providing a subsidy for the
deployment of pre-commercial projects, which is limited to sub-
10MW projects and will not last in the longer term. A far more sig-
nificant effort must be considered to deploy the capacity required
for reaching competitive status against other forms of generation,
in particular through revenue-incentives and the warranty of con-
tinued support over project life-span. The value of early market
lead should not be underestimated. Back in the 1980s, the
Howden Group, a Scottish firm, was leader in the development of
wind turbines but threw in the towel when faced with gloomy mar-
ket prospects. Twenty years later, the German Minister for the
Environment can be pleased: in a low-growth and high-unemploy-
ment context, the "Jobmaschine" has created over 64,000 positions
and with the Danes,

Germany holds two thirds of a £11 billion annual market grow-

ing between 20 and 30% a year. This approach having been used
for other technologies, the German renewable energy sector grew
in 2005 by more than 10%, employing around 170,000 people -
an important precedent which should comfort wave and tidal as a
safety net for the declining North Sea oil and gas industry. As
Richard Yemm, CEO of Ocean Power Delivery most correctly
pointed out, we need less a "technological push" than an "industry
pull".
The journey towards mainstream use of wave and tidal energy
may be over a decade long but the precedent of offshore wind
paved the way to prove both engineers and investors that energy
could be extracted from the sea both technically and financially.
Ultimately, the rationale for the growth of wave and tidal power
lies in the practicality of renewables as a source of energy and
investment. The current economical paradigm assumes fundamen-
tally that: 1) demand will always be met by 'affordable' sources of
power and 2) there will always be a simple solution around that can
be deployed quickly.

This is a very dangerous misunderstanding as the energy system

underpins any other sector in the economy and evolves in long
cycles of around 50 years, mobilising considerable investments.
Our continent cannot passively rely on 'technological advance' to
resolve any future issue. Only a resolute industrial policy can
secure the commercial benefits of wave and tidal energy, trans-
forming field-trialled ideas into demonstrated business models.

48 reFOCUS May/June 2006 www.re-focus.net