Press release: Caitlin Long wins SR Young Professionals Green Energy Academic Award for EMEC

Caitlin Long, Consents and Project Officer at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, has won the coveted ‘Academic Award’ at the Scottish Renewables Young Professionals Green Energy Awards 2017 held in the Glasgow Science Centre [Thursday 25 May 2017].

Following in the footsteps of the hugely successful Scottish Green Energy Awards, this event run by Scottish Renewables recognises the contribution being made by the next generation of thinkers, shapers and decision makers in the renewable energy sector – one of Scotland’s proudest environmental and economic success stories.

The academic award is given each year to a talented graduate or student who has delivered exceptional work on a project or course. And Caitlin has certainly done just that at EMEC.

Since joining EMEC in 2014, having graduated with an MSc in Marine Renewable Energy from Heriot Watt’s Orkney Campus at the International Centre for Island Technologies, Caitlin has worked tirelessly to streamline the consenting process for marine energy developers.

She has worked closely with the wave and tidal energy developers coming to test at EMEC – including Wello, Scotrenewables, Sustainable Marine Energy, Tocardo and Nautricity – guiding them through the consenting process to ensure that all the necessary licences and consents are in place to get their technology deployed at EMEC’s sites.

Caitlin has acted as liaison between developers, regulators and regulatory consultees to help smooth the consenting process, and supports developers in adopting an appropriate environmental monitoring programme. She developed guidance on the consenting process in Wave Energy Scotland’s knowledge capture project, provides best practice for environmental monitoring internationally, and implemented EMEC’s Section 36 site wide licence enabling developers of more than 1 MW to test at EMEC.

In addition to that, Caitlin also led EMEC’s wildlife observations project and the wildlife displacement study to overcome a key industry challenge: understanding the marine environment and how it interacts with marine energy deployments.

Accepting the award last night, Caitlin Long said:

“It is an absolute privilege to be given this award. A massive thank you goes to Neil Kermode, Elaine Buck and the rest of the fantastic EMEC team for supporting my development in this exciting industry.

“The developers that come to test at EMEC are such driven and passionate people, extremely enthusiastic to get their devices in the water as quickly as possible, and I do my best to help them achieve the necessary consents to make this happen.
“Thank you to all those developers who supported my nomination for this award. It’s great to know my efforts have not gone unnoticed and I can do my own little bit to help them along their development pathway.

“I look forward to continuing my work at EMEC and can’t wait to see the wave and tidal energy industry become a commercial success.”

Having nominated Caitlin for the award, Elaine Buck, Technical Manager at EMEC, said:

“Consents is a vital part to the developer deployment pathway so Caitlin is deeply involved with all the projects that are currently coming through EMEC. Her professional contributions and genuine ‘can do’ attitude to support all our clients through the process of deploying at EMEC is stellar! She is a leading jewel in our organisation and I’m thrilled she has won this very deserved award.”

For the full list of finalists and winners, visit: Scottish Renewables Young Professionals Green Energy Awards 2017

Caitlin Long with EMEC’s previous SR YPGE winner Lisa MacKenzie