News this week

We have seen a wild few days weather at Billia Croo this week – the highest wind speed locally came from the windfarm on Hammars Hill, in Evie, where a top speed of over 122 miles per hour was recorded. The picture shows the Hamnavoe ferry in Hoy Sound, passing Billia Croo in lively sea conditions!

Last week EMEC staff had an exciting time chasing a waverider buoy which escaped from our test site. Thanks to some great teamwork, using local boats and local knowledge the Buoy was located and successfully recovered onto the MV Flamborough Light, undamaged and fully functional. It was located via GPS and our receiver on board the boat; EMEC’s Hydrodynamicist John Lawrence used DHI data modelling to predict where the buoy might drift to, to help intersect it. Many thanks to John, Chris Casely, Donald Sinclair, Mark Wemyss and Jennifer Falconer for their hard work in retrieving it, and Scotrenewables for the use of their RIB.

Operations Director Stuart Baird attended the 2010 EEF Future Manufacturing Awards gala dinner in London on 27 January 2011 as a guest of J+S who designed and manufactured new cable ends for EMEC. The EMEC project gained them the National Runner Up prize in the “Climate Change Opportunity” award. At the same awards, we were delighted to see Mike Brookes-Roper also win the National Runner Up prize in the EEF Photography Competition for a picture he took in Stromness during the installation of Aquamarine’s Oyster device.
Congratulations to both winners!