While the UK customarily props up the tail end of the renewable-energy high- achiever list, it has started to sense that the answer, or a big part of it, is right there on its doorstep. According to estimates by RenewableUK, the country’s leading renewable-energy association, around 30GW – or a fifth of the UK’s total electricity requirement – could be harnessed from marine (wave and tidal) energy by 2050.

In its recent report, The Next Steps for Marine Energy, it wagers that a “properly capitalised” sector could create 43,500 direct jobs and generate a potential £4.2bn (€5bn) per year in revenue for the UK economy. Scotland in particular is flush with aquatic opportunity, with 25% of Europe’s tidal and 10% of its wave-energy resources. “It is a staggering amount,” says Johanna Yates, policy manager at the industry umbrella body Scottish Renewables.

UK marine energy’s watershed moment came exactly 12 months ago when the nation’s property gatekeepers, the Crown Estate, unlocked the seabed around Scotland’s Pentland Firth and Orkney waters with a £4bn wave-and-tidal- energy plan capable of powering more than 750,000 homes. An eye-popping 1.2GW – four times what Scotland’s Dounreay nuclear power station produced in its heyday – is to be split 50/50 between six wave-energy projects and four tidal projects, far surpassing initial expectations of a leasing round of 700MW. Following the announcement, Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond suggested the Pentland Firth could become “the Saudi Arabia” of marine energy.

Scottish and Southern Energy Renewables scored big with tidal and wave-farm sites worth 800MW, two of which are in collaboration with technology partners Aquamarine Power and OpenHydro. ScottishPower Renewables bagged 150MW in development sites, 100MW went to E.ON and Marine Current Turbines, and Pelamis Wave Power secured 50MW. The latter is also involved in one each of the ScottishPower and E.ON projects.

In November things got even better when another 400MW of leases were thrown into the mix and secured by the MeyGen joint venture – International Power (45%), Morgan Stanley (45%) and Atlantis Resources Corporation (10%) – paving the way for what will effectively become the world’s largest tidal-power project should all go to plan.

“Nobody else has this kind of clearly defined programme for roll-out,” says RenewableUK wave and tidal development manager Oliver Wragg. “There’s nowhere else like this in the world, there really isn’t.”

His enthusiasm is shared by Neil Kermode, managing director at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), the world’s laboratorial Mecca for wave and tidal testing, where tech developers can essentially plug ‘n’ play and generate electricity. Currently EMEC has contracts let for 12 of its 13 sites.

“There’s something of a planetary alignment that’s gone on with policy, technology and a general waking up,” says Kermode. “It’s moved from the fringe to the industrial players recognising there’s a market and money to be made.”

When it comes to terms of technology, 300 wave and tidal devices are competing in the R&D arms race. Among those edging toward commercial paydirt are Pelamis Wave Power’s distinctive sea snake device (wave); Aquamarine’s Oyster machine (wave); Cantick Head Tidal’s jet-engine lookalike (tidal); and Atlantis Resource Corporation’s AK1000 (the world’s largest underwater tidal turbine).

Intriguing early-stage milestones are also coming into view. In April 2008, Marine Current Turbines’ 1.2MW SeaGen turbine launched in Northern Ireland as the world’s first commercial-scale tidal- stream turbine. Months later, Pelamis Wave Power’s P2 device was installed at EMEC as part of a collaboration with  
E.ON in the UK’s first commercial supply contract within the sector.

There are a host of marine-energy hotbeds around the world – Portugal, Spain, the US, India and in particular South Korea are starting to make encouraging noises – but for now the UK is the clear front-runner. Even before the Crown Estate’s leasing bonanza moved it years ahead of the pack, it boasted 2.4MW of installed power, another 27MW with planning consent, and 77.5MW of projects in planning. “Given what is achievable that doesn’t seem much, but it is the biggest start, the most in the water anywhere in the world,” says Yates.

The industry has also been bolstered by the best research and development facilities in the world, including the aforementioned EMEC, the New and Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) and the Wave Hub, a £42m (€50m) testing facility offthe coast of Cornwall that was recently plugged into the national grid. Furthermore, a history of working in harsh, energy-rich North Sea environments has laid the groundwork for a crack maritime workforce.

Then, of course there’s the massive boon that is the Crown Estate’s ability to lease the seabed, something that no other country has. “We understand the market,” says Martin Simpson, the Crown Estate’s head of marine technology and projects. “We understand what is required, what technology developers are looking for, what the finance people are looking for, and that enables us to construct propositions that are well thought out and attractive to the market.”

So far the UK government has been well onboard. Last March, during Gordon Brown’s tenure as Labour prime minister, the UK Marine Energy Action Plan was published, charting out the actions needed to drive the marine-energy sector forward towards 2030. The technology has since been enthusiastically backed by the current David Cameron-led Conservative- Liberal Democrat coalition.

Wragg is encouraged by the new government’s signals to date and reckons that by 2020 the UK could have 1GW- 2GW worth of marine energy projects in the water. “While there were many things [the politicians] couldn’t agree on, one of the things they could agree on was marine energy,” he says.

The UK’s main incentive mechanism for alternative-energy projects is the Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC), handed out to clean-energy providers for every unit of power – or megawatt hour (MWh) – produced. These are then traded, typically with polluting companies such as coal-fired power stations, which have to buy ROCs commensurate with the amount of carbon dioxide they emit. The Scottish government has stolen the march here, sweetening the deal of its abundantly charged waters with three ROCs for wave and five for tidal, whereas in England and Wales only two are available for each.

Work is going on behind the scenes to correct the disparity and even the playing field across geographic and technological boundaries, but little movement is expected until 2013. Kinks aside, however, the general consensus is that the UK government isn’t doing too badly. “The emphasis is there,“ says Amaan LaFayette, E.ON marine development manager.“Can the government do more? Yes. Is it looking at that? Yes it is.”

Of course, the UK has had the opportunity to be a renewable-energy contender before and blown it, most memorably with wind energy. The well-worn sob story goes that the UK was on an level R&D playing field with Denmark but was hamstrung by government indecision and a general lack of nerve. Denmark, on the other hand, conjured up an early market with a deft combination of clear and consistent price-support mechanisms and favourable grid-access conditions. Today it is the world leader in the wind industry with a global share of more than 50%, generating mouth-watering annual revenues of approximately £2.7bn (€3.3bn).

“If you fund a lot of R&D but you don’t have a market to deploy it in, the industry isn’t going to stay there, and that’s kind of what happened with wind,” says Stephen Wyatt, head of the Marine Energy Accelerator programme at the carbon- reduction advice body the Carbon Trust. “Now I believe we will get it right.”

Jim Mather, Scotland’s minister for enterprise, energy and tourism, certainly believes the Scottish approach has evolved since the Denmark debacle. “The lesson to be learned is one of alignment,” he says. “Alignment of government policy with industry, alignment of other public bodies with industry, and the development of a very strong common cause.

“I was talking to someone from a leading energy company recently and he said what had been achieved over the last three years was very much a ‘Team Scotland’ approach, creating a momentum to get projects and facilities in play.”

So far Mather estimates that Scotland has provided £26m (€31m) in capital grants to encourage deployment of marine-energy devices, and points to the recent introduction of the industry- specific £10m (€12m) Saltire prize, one of the biggest scientific innovation awards in history.

The main problem at the moment is lack of money as the next developmental stage comes into view. To date, the UK government has committed an estimated £200m (€238m) to support the industry through various funding calls and infrastructure developments.

RenewableUK estimates that the first commercial arrays of marine-energy technology into the water will cost an additional £150m-£200m over the next five years. This will also help to de-risk the market and ramp up the private investment needed to achieve economies of scale. “There is always the risk the UK will stand back and let somebody else take the lead – which would be regrettable, if not unforgivable,” warns Kermode. “ The lead is ours to lose.”

MAKING A SPLASH: THE KEY PLAYERS

ATLANTIS RESOURCES CORPORATION

Boasting a suite of tidal technologies and with eyes on expanding into markets in China, India and South Korea, Atlantis Resources Corporation is all about thinking big. “There is a misconception that small-scale installations will be economically viable,” says CEO Tim Cornelius (pictured). “We think that you need large-scale projects to create realistic commercial scenarios.”

Last August the tidal company, which is 49% backed by Morgan Stanley, unveiled the world’s largest tidal- power turbine, the AK1000 (above) – an 18-metre rotor diameter, 1,300-tonne, 22.5-metre high behemoth capable of despatching 1MW of predictable power at a water velocity of 2.65 metres per second.

“We work at both ends of the spectrum – technology that is cutting edge and appropriate for the North Sea and understanding how you get a project funded. It’s that combination that sets Atlantis apart from other pure-play technology developers,” says Cornelius.

MARINE CURRENT TURBINES

An early mover, Marine Current Turbines started testing the world’s first tidal turbine as long ago as 1994.

Ranked as the top tidal energy company in the Guardian Global Cleantech 100 Survey in 2009, the company is most famous for its SeaGen device, which became the world’s first commercial-scale turbine when it was installed in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, in March 2008. Using twin 16m diameter rotors to develop a rated power of 1.2MW at a current velocity of 2.4m/s, Marine Current Turbines claims it has the capability to deliver about 10MWh per tide, which adds up to 6,000MWh per year.

“Our 1.2MW tidal turbine is capturing as much energy as a 2.5MW offshore wind turbine but it’s doing it to a timetable,” says chief executive Martin Wright.

“That’s got to be something worth raising an eyebrow to and saying: ‘Maybe there’s something interesting there,” adds Wright (pictured). “We’ve shown people that here’s a device that says now is the time, it does what it says on the tin, and it does it very consistently.”

AQUAMARINE POWER

Edinburgh wave-energy pioneer Aquamarine Power took a major step towards commercialising its flagship Oyster technology in November with a £11m (₣13m) cash injection from power and automation technology giant ABB and existing shareholders.

The Oyster wave-power device is a buoyant, hinged flap attached to the seabed at around 10 metres depth, half a kilometre from shore. Energy is generated by the flap, which is almost entirely underwater, swaying backwards and forwards in the nearshore waves, driving two hydraulic pistons that push high-pressure water onshore to drive a conventional hydroelectric turbine.

Aquamarine Power aims to deploy the device in 100MW farms and has plans to create similar technologies to provide desalination services. “We’re out to change the world, or certainly the way electricity is made,” says CEO Martin McAdam.