The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Orkney, Scotland, has joined forces with Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre (PTEC) to develop a large-scale tidal energy site off the Isle of Wight, England.
This site will be eligible to bid into future UK Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation rounds enabling tidal energy technologies developed in the UK to deliver predictable low carbon energy.
PTEC is a 30 MW tidal energy demonstration facility 2.5 km south of the Isle of Wight, with a potential expansion capacity up to 300 MW. After signing off the agreements last week, EMEC is already working on-site development and optimisation activities. This will build upon the early work done by the PTEC team to get the site consented in 2016.
PTEC has re-established its operational status to move to the next stage of development and pulled in EMEC expertise to get the site ready for commercial scale tidal energy technologies now coming to market. Within this PTEC is also exploring opportunities for offshore green hydrogen generation.
PTEC tidal flows.
The partnership builds on work taking place in the £41 million Interreg Channel funded TIGER project, which will ready five sites in France and the UK for tidal energy developments. The project is led by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (ORE Catapult) with EMEC as a key site development partner.
Making the PTEC site deployment-ready will be a significant boost to the UK tidal energy sector. The UK government recently launched a Call for Evidence for Marine Energy, linked to a restructuring of future CfD allocation rounds. This provoked a collective response from the marine energy industry which clearly addressed the industrial and cost reduction benefits of a ring-fenced revenue support mechanism. This would drive significant investment into tidal energy, drive down costs, and secure the UK’s global lead.
The UK is the clear global leader in marine energy and, with the right support, will lead a global export market estimated to be worth £76 bn by 2050.