News this week

EMEC has been recognised for its innovative energy infrastructure projects at an award ceremony held last week (Thursday, 10 November) in London. EMEC came Highly Commended in the New Energy Infrastructure Project of the Year category at the inaugural Energy Infrastructure Awards 2011, after using new technology to install two tidal cables and one deep water wave cable in harsh conditions, as well as developing innovative cable end junctions, allowing developers faster and easier connections to the national grid. EMEC was also commended for the development of two nursery test sites, bridging the gap between wave or tidal tank testing and testing full scale prototypes in real sea conditions. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners.

EMEC continue to work closely with stakeholders in the marine renewable industry:

• Following signing the Renewable UK Health and Safety Accord last month, Neil Kermode participated in a teleconference with RUK last week ensuring health and safety lessons are shared throughout the industry.
• Jenny Norris recently discussed EMEC’s wildlife monitoring activities at a Sharing Good Practice event in Perth, which brought together developers, consultants, regulators and other relevant stakeholders in the marine renewables industry. The event, run by Scottish Natural Heritage in association with Marine Scotland, enabled knowledge sharing to minimise the impact marine renewables development has on the marine environment.
• Richard Morris has been attending Dynamic Shetland, Shetland’s Renewable Energy Conference, this week. Following the conference, EMEC were pleased to see representatives from Scottish Development International drop past for a catch up and update on each other’s progress.

EMEC have also hosted a number of visitors in the past few weeks:

• We were pleased to welcome representatives from the Nordic Atlantic Cooperation (NORA) who were highly interested in the innovative activities happening here in Orkney. Orkney and the NORA regions share similar challenges in terms of trade and industry, and thus NORA were intrigued to learn how we overcome these challenges, and what opportunities may be present for cooperation between the regions.
• EMEC were also hosts to the Northlink Board who were shown around the offices and toured the Billia Croo wave test site.
• And earlier today, a group of students from the Wavetrain2 course (currently taking place in Orkney), visited Billia Croo and the Black Craig Observation Point, following a talk on environmental monitoring and consenting issues from Jenny Norris. The wavetrain2 project is a multinational training network focusing on the wide range of challenges that industrial-scale wave energy implementation faces in the near future.

Finally, acoustic surveys were successfully carried out at the Fall of Warness (tidal test site) and Shapinsay Sound (tidal nursery site) this week. The purpose of the surveys is to assess the effects that acoustic emissions from tidal devices may have on some wildlife species.

Coming up:

Richard Coackley, President of the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) is visiting on Monday next week. He is interested in the innovative work that is taking place in Orkney, particularly the major infrastructure developments by Orkney Islands Council at Lyness for the Marine Renewables Facility. He will also be meeting members of ICE that are based in Orkney.

Neil Kermode will be attending the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG) Wave and Tidal Industry Update in Aberdeen next Thursday (24th November 2011) updating members on progress at EMEC.