News this week
Neil Kermode, EMEC’s Managing Director, chaired the SuperGen Marine Research Advisory Forum held at Edinburgh University this week. The work of the SuperGen consortium was discussed in advance of the Marine Annual Assembly on 18th November. More information on SuperGen can be found on their website.
Last Friday a special training session for the Orkney Islands Council Marine Services team was delivered by EMEC and Stromness environmental consultants Aquatera. With the Scottish Government encouraging commercial-scale marine energy production in the Pentland Firth and Orkney waters, the training is in preparation for a big increase in wave and tidal energy generation. Marine Services is already providing strong support to the sector with £3 million to be spent by the council in developing Lyness as a marine renewable base. Their control room keeps a close eye on Orkney waters, which are used extensively by oil and gas tankers, cruise liners and other vessels, and is well placed – and well equipped – to monitor the growth in activity around our islands. With Orkney’s capacity to deliver what the industry needs, Neil Kermode and Dr Gareth Davies from Aquatera were keen to provide an inside view on future development.
Jenny Norris, Research & Consents Manager and John Lawrence, Hydrodynamicist, both attended the EquiMar project mid-term review at the European Commission in Brussels this week. The EquiMar project is a collaborative research and development project involving a consortium of 23 partners. The aim of EquiMar is to deliver a suite of protocols for the equitable evaluation of marine energy converters (based on either tidal or wave energy). Outputs from the EquiMar project will establish a sound base for future international marine energy standards. EMEC plays an active role in the amalgamation of this work with relevant standards work being undertaken in the UK. For more information see the EquiMar website.
Finally, we had a number of visitors to EMEC this week including a group of worldwide employees from Scottish Development International. They stopped in Orkney as part of a Scottish familiarisation trip on the theme of marine renewables. Sarah Boyack and David Stewart MSPs also came to EMEC, where Eileen Linklater gave a presentation on current activities made possible through Government support, before being joined by a group from the Orkney Renewable Energy Forum (OREF) for an interesting round table discussion on Orkney’s potential, the importance of grid connections and how to prepare for future growth. Eileen also gave a presentation to environmental and engineering staff from the Xodus Group, international oil and gas consultants, who visited the wave test site at Billa Croo.
