Cornwall attracts Finnish wave power test

Finnish energy company Fortum is testing its wave power technology in Cornwall. Today it announced a deal with the UK-based Wave Hub which has testing sites 16km off the Cornish coast in the Atlantic Ocean. They picked the site to trial wave power converters in “favourable ocean conditions”. Fortum’s Chief Technology Officer Heli Antila said: […]

New research aims to cut costs of wave energy generators

The University of Dundee has won a £250,000 grant for research into reducing the costs of wave energy generators and making them more efficient. It will be working on a three-year project with Pelamis Wave Power and will use the energy developer’s machine – the tubes of which are currently made from steel – and […]

Subsea cable sought for remote Scottish renewables

A Scottish energy provider wants to build a subsea cable so it can transmit renewable energy from the remote far north of Scotland to the rest of the country. Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission – part of SSE – has asked Ofgem for permission to install the cable. It will connect to onshore substations at Spittal in […]

Wave Power Potential on Scottish Coast

Following a recent batch of interesting and topical renewable energy articles on the Catalyst Commercial website, we thought that the recent study into harnessing the wave power from around the UK was a perfect fit. A recent study conducted by the Crown Estate (who owns the British foreshore and seabed) has reported that utilising wave […]

New wave predicting method could double marine energy

New methods for predicting wave power could double the energy from marine renewables, academics have claimed. Researchers at the University of Exeter have found a way of accurately predicting the power of waves, which they claim could help make wave technologies more efficient. The study focused on point absorbers, commonly used floating devices with parts […]

Unite and RenewableUK form power couple

Trade body RenewableUK could increase its political muscle after officially teaming up with the UK’s largest trade union Unite which represents 1.5 million workers. The two bodies announced today they have signed an accord to support each other in campaigning for benefits for UK businesses and their workers in the renewable industry. They say it […]

Orkney wave farm could be world’s largest

Alstom and SSE have joined forces to build the world’s largest wave energy site. The partners will develop the Costa Head Wave Project, a site located north of mainland Orkney which could generate 200MW of power. The joint venture hopes to install 2.5MW AWS-III wave energy converters at the site with an initial phase of […]

Power firms ride the waves together

Big Six company ScottishPower has taken a new wave power device out to the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney to begin tests. The company are joined by E.ON who are also testing a similar device at the centre. The new P2 Pelamis device, which is 180m long, converts the motion of waves into electricity […]

Wave powered energy buoy survives Irene

An energy-producing buoy dropped in the Atlantic Ocean survived a battering from Hurricane Irene. The device made by US marine firm Ocean Power Technologies survived 15 metre waves during the height of the storm. The PowerBuoy is designed to provide persistent, off-grid, clean energy in remote ocean locations for a wide variety of maritime security […]

Energy research centre opens at university

A multi-million research centre has opened at the University of Strathclyde. The Advanced Forming Research Centre will pioneer techniques to support manufacturing in the energy, aerospace, marine and automobile industries. It is a joint venture between the university, Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish government and several international engineering firms including Rolls-Royce and Boeing. University Principal, professor […]