Blog: Head of Scottish Enterprise impressed with EMEC progress
During a recent trip to Orkney, the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise, Dr Lena Wilson, was highly impressed by the achievements that have been made over the last decade in the marine renewables sector. She reflects on her visit below:
“As Scotland’s economic development agencies, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise have long recognised the potential that marine energy offers Scotland. We do after all account for 10% of Europe’s wave energy resources and 25% of its tidal energy.
“Scottish Enterprise has supported and invested in companies such as Aquamarine and Pelamis, and was one of the founding funders in EMEC.
“So I was delighted to visit Orkney to see for myself how the industry is developing and to facilitate discussion on how best we can continue to build on its success thus far.
“Meeting EMEC’s Eileen Linklater at Billia Croo – on an incredibly mild and calm September day – I maybe did not get a full sense of the power of waves but I certainly did start to understand the value of this test site and the incredible wealth of data EMEC is now able to collate and analyse for companies.
“During my visit, I also had the pleasure of finding out more about Aquamarine’s Oyster, Scotrenewables’ tidal device and saw the Pelamis wave device up close which really gave a sense of its scale as well as its potential.
“A discussion with Eileen and Stuart Baird of EMEC afterwards confirmed the world leading status of the work EMEC is undertaking. The fact it is the only grid-connected wave and tidal energy device testing establishment in the world is an incredible achievement.
“As Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise, a key part of my role is to support companies to internationalise and seek global investment to Scotland.
“EMEC is a real asset for Scotland and seeing its work first hand, along with meeting many of the very talented people involved in this sector, provides me with a very strong narrative in demonstrating to potential investors why Scotland is the place to invest in renewables.”
