Blog: Neil Kermode reflects on the Marine Energy Park announcement
I believe that when we look back at 2012 we will see the step change that occurred in support for the industry as a result of this week.
The announcement of Scotland’s first Marine Energy Park on Monday was yet another marker to show how strategically important marine energy is to the future economy of the north of Scotland. The aspirations of Government, business and local communities are in alignment when it comes to marine renewables. We know the nation needs a sustainable energy source, we know it is here, we now know we can harvest it and we know this will create employment for people in perpetuity. This simply has to happen; to ignore it would be daft.
The Marine Energy Park is a very useful wrapper to put around so much of the activity already underway around Orkney and Caithness and the launch gave us a chance to showcase it.
The gathering of ‘players’ in the area was useful and gave them a chance to see the harbour works at Scrabster, along with Lyness, Stromness and Hatston in Orkney. With the amazing help of staff at Northlink Ferries (and the sun coming out at exactly the right moment) the crossing to Orkney provided an excellent opportunity to see several of the local vessels presently working in the industry and to discuss the opportunities this all presents to the community. This was staged brilliantly under Gareth Davies of Aquatera’s capable leadership.
Upon arrival at Stromness the Energy Ministers (Greg Barker & Fergus Ewing) boarded a Pilot boat to see the wave devices operating and installing at the EMEC test site at Billia Croo. Also aboard were senior representatives of each of the device developers: Seatricity, Pelamis, Wello & Aquamarine Power. The weather was unnaturally kind with calm seas and bright sunshine (followed the next day by a storm, and thick fog ever since) and it gave these pivotal decision makers unprecedented access to see the machines ‘in the flesh’.
In my experience there is nothing better than getting people this close to the machines to begin to understand the scale of the challenges that have already been conquered to get these devices into the water. It also allowed the device developers to explain something of their challenges and plans for the future.
Finally, I want to express my sincere thanks to everybody who played a part in making Monday and Tuesday such a success. What people saw was amazing and that was just the tip of the iceberg. What is going on here is remarkable and it was a pleasure to be able to show it off.
