Two major energy happenings occurred in Orkney at the end of September, the first a major new tidal energy testing facility and the second, planning approval for the world’s largest wave farm to date.

The £12.6 million European Marine Energy Centre, opened by Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond on the 28th September, has its tidal site on Eday, an island that is just eight miles long with a population of just 120 people. It will offer international tidal energy developers the opportunity to test prototypes in ideal conditions with tides running at 8 knots or four metres every second.

The site consists of five berths for tidal energy converters connected by subsea cables to an electrical substation at Caldale.  When all five berths are operating to full capacity they will be able to generate enough power for 1500 homes.

The second project, the world’s largest wave farm is being built by CRE Energy and is expected to use four 750 kilowatt Pelamis wave energy converters to create enough electricity to power 2,000 homes. 

See www.allmediascotland.com/media_releases/1687

Wind power is a major contributor to European renewable energy generation particularly in Germany, Spain and Denmark.  Germany has an installed capacity of 20GW, Spain has 12 GW and Denmark’s 3GW is delivered via 5,267 turbines. This makes Denmark the world leader in terms of the number of wind turbines per head of population.

However, wind power is not without its problems.  The maximum design capacity of a wind turbine cannot be reached on a continuous basis because of the variable nature of wind velocity. Also, there is an issue as to how much peak generated wind power can be accepted by the grid at any one time without risking the operational integrity of a country’s power transmission system. To use Denmark as an example, only a third of its wind generated electricity output is used within Denmark itself, the surplus is exported to neighbouring countries (at a loss) via international connectors.

In the UK, already installed wind turbines have the capability to generate 2 GW of power though in reality delivery is much lower. The British Wind Energy Association, in a recently published report, is suggesting that wind can supply up to 5% of the UK’s electricity needs by 2010. This would represent half of the governments’ target of achieving 10% of our electricity needs from renewable sources by that date.

However, there are major problems in achieving this target. Firstly, a high percentage of future build projects are tied up in planning. Secondly, to achieve a 5% figure there will have to be significant investment in modifications to the existing transmission system within the UK. Finally, actual day to day performance will always depend on wind speeds and this means the grid will always need a reserve capability, which means expensive duplication.

At the beginning of 2008, the EU laid down a clear renewable energy programme. Its aim was to ensure that 20% of the EUs’ energy came from renewable sources by 2020. Furthermore, each member state was given a specific target based on historic performance.
Some members, including Sweden, Austria and Finland who had already achieved a significant level of greenness were given targets well above 20%. Others, like the UK, whose historic renewable performance was poor were asked to reach a target well below 20% - in the UK’s case just 15%.
On top of this basic structure member states were also given the option to conduct a cross border trade in renewable via GOs (Guarantees of Origin Certificates) that will allow any EU country, once it has achieved its own target, to trade renewable energy certificates with member countries that have yet to achieve theirs.
The original intention was to make cross border trading mandatory so that countries on or ahead of their targets were incentivised to improve even further to help offset the inevitable failures of other member states. However, following objections from member states such as Germany and Spain, concerned that GOs could interfere with their individual incentive programmes this was changed from a mandatory to an optional arrangement.
The original clear EU renewables policy seems to be in increasing danger of being watered down as individual countries and Eco lobbies progress their own agendas. A UK government minister has suggested that any renewables project undertaken anywhere in the world by a UK company should qualify towards its target. Gordon Brown is already appeasing the green lobby by offering a review of the UK’s biofuel policy only days after introducing the obligatory biofuel blending law. The fuel versus fuel debate has a number of EU members deciding to review their policies within months of publishing them.
For those entrepreneurs and investors seeking to deliver the renewable energy plants that will allow the EU to achieve its targets these signals are confusing at best and will inevitably delay the development needed for renewable targets to be reached.
Whatever happened to those days when governments made decisions and stuck to them?