News this week
On Wednesday 14th October EMEC was honoured to receive a visit from HRH Princess Anne. The Princess Royal was in Orkney to take part in the ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the Royal Oak in Scapa Flow. Afterwards, EMEC was included in a small number of visits within the county, recognising the importance of EMEC’s role in the marine renewables industry locally. Neil Kermode, EMEC’s Managing Director and Eileen Linklater, Client and Marketing welcomed the Princess Royal to EMEC’s wave test site at Billia Croo. She was introduced to staff from Aquamarine Power who explained their Oyster device, and given a tour of the EMEC substation by Stuart Baird, Operations Director and Chris White Senior Test Engineer. A keen sailor, the Princess Royal said she had witnessed first hand the vast wave and tidal resources in the UK.
John Lawrence, EMEC’s Hydrodynamicist recently returned from the “ADCP’s in Action” conference in San Diego. John spoke at the very well attended event, presenting a talk entitled: “Hard-wired (continuous) ADCP measurements at EMEC’s Tidal Energy test site” during the renewable energy session with Cuan Boake from Queen’s University Belfast, and Jonathan Colby from Verdant Power, USA.
We were delighted to welcome project team members from Ocean Power Technologies to EMEC this week to discuss forthcoming preparations for deployment of their Powerbuoy at our wave test site. Susannah Calderan, an independent consultant also dropped in to see EMEC’s wave test site, and discuss environmental monitoring with Matthew Finn, Research Assistant.
An interview with Neil Kermode was featured on Radio Scotland’s “Good Morning Scotland” programme this week as part of their investigation into the effect of the recession on different industries, including marine renewables. The interview can be downloaded here – Neil Kermode Interview (3.5 MB).
Finally, on Sunday morning, the cruise liner Queen Mary 2 will be sailing through the Pentland Firth to give passengers a view of the Old Man of Hoy. No exact times have been confirmed, but the ship will be able to be tracked via EMEC’s recently activated Billia Croo receiver on AIS (Automated Identification Systems).
