News this week

While Orkney has taken a bashing in up to 138.5mph winds, we are glad to say that EMECs infrastructure has survived the storm. For those of you who keep an eye on the live wave data feed on our website, please be assured that we did not experience a 35 metre wave last night (thankfully!!). As the data is streamed straight from our wave rider buoy to the website it is not subject to our strict quality control measures and therefore can occasionally show anomalies in the data. The maximum wave height recorded last night was 16 metres (still not for the faint-hearted).

Despite the colder weather we have still welcomed a number of visitors to EMEC this week who braved the cold ascent to Orkney. A film crew from Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV), Japan were in Orkney producing a feature piece for the COP17 conference in Durban, South Africa. Japan is very interested in its own wave power potential. They interviewed Managing Director Neil Kermode at EMECs Billia Croo wave test site (pictured above) and filmed the two Pelamis devices in Lyness, owned by E.ON and Scottish Power Renewables.

On her first visit to Orkney, MSP Aileen Campbell travelled up from Clydesdale as part of a series of introductory trips to local authorities around Scotland. She met with Marine Services and EMEC representatives who provided an overview of Orkney’s role in the marine renewable industry. She was amazed by the amount of activity taking place in a peripheral island.

And all the way from Australia, Peter Berry, Managing Director of Flinders Group, who specialises in the energy industry, took a day trip to Orkney especially to find out more about EMEC. Wave and tidal energy is a particular interest in Australia at present, and he was keen to see firsthand the facilities that EMEC are offering.