Climate Change ‘More Alarming Than Ever’ Claim UK Groups

BBC News, November 24, 2009
Three UK groups studying climate change have issued a strong statement about the dangers of failing to cut emissions of greenhouse gases across the world.
The Royal Society, Met Office, and Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) say the science of climate change is more alarming than ever.
They say the 2007 UK floods, [...]

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Pelamis Wave Energy Device Testing Again

NAO NAKANISHI, Reuters, October 5, 2009
A first attempt fell victim to the crisis: now in the docks of Scotland’s ancient capital, a second-generation scarlet Sea Snake is being prepared to harness the waves of Britain’s northern islands to generate electricity.
Dwarfed by 180 metres of tubing, scores of engineers clamber over the device, which is designed [...]

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British Wave Energy Buoy Powers On

STEPHEN IVALL, Falmouth Packet UK, June 27, 2009
The ambition for Cornwall to become a world-leading centre for wave energy has moved a step closer to reality with the launch of a two-tonne (2000kg) buoy off the coast of Falmouth.
Developed by a team at the University of Exeter, the South Western Mooring Test Facility (SWMTF) buoy [...]

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Scottish Oyster Installing at EMEC

MendoCoastCurrent, March 25, 2009

Aquamarine Power has signed a $2.7 million contract with Fugro Seacore to install their wave energy generator, the Oyster, at the European Marine Energy Center.
Aquamarine’s Oyster converter is designed for waters that are from 26-52 feet deep with anticipated installation 550 yards offshore in the second half of 2009.  The Oyster has [...]

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Queen’s University Ireland Creating NextGen Wave Energy

EMMA JACKSON, UniversityWorldNews, March 15, 2009
A research team at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland has renewed a relationship with Aquamarine Power, a leading marine technology energy company. Together they may create the next generation of wave power converters that could some day be an alternative source of power for European maritime states. 
This five-year deal [...]

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Artemis Using Digital Displacement to Power New Hybrid Car

BBC News, February 25, 2009
A BMW saloon was converted with equipment to capture energy normally wasted when a driver brakes.
The team from Midlothian-based Artemis Intelligent Power said the equipment was less expensive than the batteries used in existing hybrid vehicles.
Carbon emissions from the prototype were also down by 30% in combined city and motorway driving.
The [...]

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Pelamis P2 Powers On in Orkney

MaritimeJournal.com, February 12, 2009
Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power has won an order from UK renewable energy generator E.On for the next generation Pelamis Wave Energy Converter, known as the P2.
The P2 will be built at the Pelamis Leith Docks facility and trialed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. This is the first time a [...]

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Pentland Firth, the Saudi Arabia of Tidal Power, Growing Full Tilt

JENNY HAWORTH, Scotman.com, February 12, 2009
MORE than three dozen energy companies from across the world are hoping to install wave energy devices in a stretch of sea off the north of Scotland. The renewable energy firms all have their sights on the Pentland Firth, which is considered one of the best locations in the [...]

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Aberdeenshire Council in Scotland Backing Wave Energy

DAVID EWENCHIEF, The Evening Express, February 11, 2009
The Aberdeenshire Council has pointed to tides – rather than wind turbines – as the best green solution to the energy crisis. The council took part in a consultation on the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Bill, which is going through Parliament, suggesting tide and current generation would be [...]

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New Wave Treader Attaches to Offshore Wind Turbines

MATTHEW MCDERMOTT, Treehuger.com, February 10, 2009
Based off the Aberdeen, Scotland-based company’s Ocean Treader, the Wave Treader is designed to mount onto the tower of an offshore wind turbine.
The Wave Treader concept utilizes the arms and sponsons from Ocean Treader and instead of reacting against a floating spar buoy, will react through an interface structure onto [...]

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E.On Testing Pelamis Wave Energy Device Off Scotland

MendoCoastCurrent, February 10, 2009
E.On is moving forward to install and test a single wave device to be fully operational in 2010. Based around a single 750kW Pelamis P2 device that is currently being built in Edinburgh, it will be installed and tested at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.  
The first year of technology [...]

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Push for Clean Energy Spurs Tidal Power Globally

Bloomberg via The Economic Times, February 2, 2009
LONDON: Three decades ago, engineer Peter Fraenkel created an underwater turbine to use river power to pump water in Sudan, where he worked for a charity. Civil war and a lack of funding stymied his plans. Now, his modified design generates electricity from tides off Northern Ireland.
“In the [...]

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Five Projects Make Severn Tidal Project Shortlist

RenewableEnergyWorld.com, January 27, 2009 
A shortlist of proposed plans to generate electricity from the power of the tides in the Severn estuary has been unveiled by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.
UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband has also announced £500,000 [US $702,000] of new funding to further develop early-stage technologies like tidal reefs [...]

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Great Gabbard Inquiry Launched on Turbine Blade Damage

PHILIPPE NAUGHTON, TimesOnline UK, January 8, 2009
An investigation was under way today into how a 65 ft. blade was mysteriously torn off a wind turbine amid reports of “strange lights” in the sky.
The 300 ft. turbine at Conisholme in Lincolnshire was left wrecked after the incident. Local residents speculate that the damage could have been [...]

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Tidal Energy Limited Gets Boost from Propeller and Wind Technologies

ALOK JHA, Guardian UK, January 5, 2009
Propellers on ships have been tried and tested for centuries in the rough and unforgiving environment of the sea: now this long-proven technology will be used in reverse to harness clean energy from the UK’s powerful tides.
The tides that surge around the UK’s coasts could provide up to a [...]

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Irish Tidal Turbines Now at Full Power

BBC News, December 18, 2008
A tidal turbine near the mouth of Strangford Lough has begun producing electricity at full capacity for the first time.  The SeaGen system now generates 1.2MW, the highest level of power produced by a tidal stream system anywhere in the world.
The system works like an “underwater windmill” but with rotors driven [...]

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Capturing Ocean Energy

Guardian.co.uk, December 3, 2008
Way back in Napoleonic Paris, a Monsieur Girard had a novel idea about energy: power from the sea. In 1799, Girard obtained a patent for a machine he and his son had designed to mechanically capture the energy in ocean waves. Wave power could be used, they figured, to run pumps and [...]

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$15 Million Ocean Energy Contest Launches in Scotland

JAMES OWEN, National Geographic News, December 2, 2008
The race is officially on for a U.S. $15 million (10 million Euro) prize for harnessing the power of the oceans.
The winning marine renewable energy innovation would provide a serious energy alternative to burning fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming.
Details of the Saltire Prize Challenge were announced [...]

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Vestas Wins Wind Turbine Contract for Thanet Wind Farm

Energy Central News, December 02, 2008
Vestas Wind Systems has received an order to supply 100 units of its V90-3MW wind turbine for installation at the Thanet offshore wind farm, 11.3km offshore from Foreness Point in the Thames Estuary on the easternmost part of the Kent coastline in the UK. The order has been placed by [...]

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BP Scraps British Renewables Plan to Focus on US

TERRY MACALISTER, The Guardian/UK, November 7, 2008
BP has dropped all plans to build wind farms and other renewable schemes in Britain and is instead concentrating the bulk of its $8bn (£5bn) renewables spending programme on the US, where government incentives for clean energy projects can provide a convenient tax shelter for oil and gas revenues.
The [...]

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UK Overtakes Denmark as World’s Biggest Offshore Wind Generator

ALOK JHA, The Guardian, October 21, 2008
The United Kingdom now leads the world in generating electricity from offshore wind farms, the government said today as it completed the construction of a farm near the coast off Skegness, Lincolnshire.
The new farm, built by the energy company Centrica, will produce enough power for 130,000 homes, raising the [...]

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Renewable Wales from Wave Energy to Wind

ERICA GIES, eMagazine.com, May 2008
Wales, a beautiful corner of the United Kingdom on the western edge of England, helped fuel Britain’s industrial revolution, not to mention its pea-soup pollution “fogs.” The mining of vast quantities of coal from its southern valleys for two centuries enabled the British to go forth and conquer the world. Now, [...]

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Tidal Power Now Online Feeding Irish Grid

CLAIRE BATES, The Daily Mail, July 17, 2008
The first ever commercial electricity powered by the tides has been put on the National Grid, project managers said today.
The £10million SeaGen turbine based in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough generated enough green energy to supply 150 homes in a test. Full-blown production is expected in a few weeks’ [...]

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Renewable Energy Centre Applauds Irish & Scottish Feasibility Study

openPR.co.uk, July 23, 2008
Plans announced yesterday for a study into the feasibility of wind and wave farms off the coast of Northern Ireland and Scotland were heralded as a positive step forward by The Renewable Energy Centre
Costing 1.6 million and funded mainly by Inter-Reg, an EU (European Union) funded programme, the study will begin later [...]

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Exeter Scientist Leads Major European Wave Energy Project

Atom.ex.ac.uk, July 21, 2008
As Europe’s largest ocean energy research programme launches, one of its participants speaks of the huge potential for the South West to become a leader in wave energy development.
Professor George Smith of the University of Exeter is a member of EquiMar, a group of 62 scientists from 11 European countries working together [...]

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World’s First Large Scale Wave Farm Aims to Lower Costs

EnvironmentalResearchWeb.org, Jul 22, 2008
Of all the renewable technologies, wave and tidal energy is currently the most expensive way of producing energy. But a project in the UK hopes to help this technology move along the learning curve and bring down costs.
When installed in 2010, Wave Hub will be the world’s first large-scale wave farm. Just [...]

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Scottish Energy Firms to Bring Hydro Power to the People

SEVERIN CARRELL, The Guardian, June 27, 2008
Scotland is planning a renewable energy revolution that would trump the ambitious strategy announced yesterday in London by Gordon Brown – and without building any nuclear power stations.
Brown’s UK-wide strategy sets out how the nation as a whole could reach a target of 30-35% of electricity being generated from [...]

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Scotland’s Pentland Firth Tidal Energy Project

RenewableEnergyDev.com, April 8, 2008
A Dutch tidal device developer has recognised the potential in the Scottish waters and is planning a new tidal energy power plant in the Pentland Firth, hoping to begin development as early as the end of 2008.
Tocardo has established a subsidiary company called Tocardo Tidal Energy with the plan to set up production, assembly and office [...]

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Tidal Turbine Jobs in the U.K.

Ocean Energy Council, April 23, 2008
A renewables company based in Cardiff is looking to make commercial waves from a marine energy venture.
Eco2 is the major shareholder and commercial driver of Tidal Energy which has developed an innovative technology to generate electrical power from tidal stream resources.
Its DeltaStream technology takes the concept of wind turbine and [...]

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South Korea Coast Tidal Energy Project

RenewableEnergyDev.com, March 17, 2008
An agreement has been signed to develop a huge tidal power field off the South Korean coast. The joint venture between Lunar Energy of the U.K. and Korean Midland Power Company will develop the tidal power plant in the Wando Hoenggan waterway at a construction cost of £500 million.
The scheme will use power from [...]

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