News this week

Icy conditions have been making access to Billia Croo difficult over recent weeks, but now the snow has cleared the wind has increased delaying some planned work on site. We are however preparing to carry out a cable test at the wave site as soon as the weather permits. TGL are still continuing preparatory works for their turbine installation at the Fall of Warness also.

This week we were visited by Motoo Yoshioka and Tetsutaro Usui from the Sumitomo Corporation, Japan. Accompanied by Scottish Development International they visited EMEC to promote their industrial textiles for sub-sea use, and to research marine renewables to inform their Global Strategy and Research Department.

We were also delighted to welcome Guy Lavender (pictured above) to EMEC, in his first week as General Manager of the Wave Hub project. Wave Hub will be a large grid-connected socket on the seabed that will allow small arrays of wave energy devices to be tested. There are plans to have four berths in 50m water 10 miles off the North Cornwall coast, funded with £12.5 million from the South West RDA, £20 million from the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme and £9.5 million from the UK government. Eileen Linklater gave Guy a tour of the EMEC offices and wave test site and discussed sharing learning between test facilities.