Memorandum by Wavegen
1. Wavegen, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation, is a company developing
technology to generate electricity from ocean waves. The company
is recognised as a world leader in this field and has developed
and operates Limpet, the world's first grid connected commercial
scale wave energy plant. This plant has been in operation since
2000 and has given Wavegen unrivalled experience of operation
of wave plant. Wavegen is currently contracted to supply 16 units
for incorporation into a breakwater in Spain, with commissioning
due in early 2009. In the UK Wavegen is working with npower renewables
who have recently submitted a planning application for a 4 MW
project utilising Wavegen technology.
2. Wave power is today considerably more
expensive than more established renewable energy technologies
such as onshore wind. This is not at all surprising in view of
the relatively early stage in the technology's development. It
is accepted that the world's oceans are a vast untapped renewable
energy resource and that while the technical challenges are considerable
the opportunity justifies the risks and costs of development of
the technology. The UK is recognised as a world leader in this
field with a considerable opportunity to develop a new industry.
The UK has a number of technology developers, of which Wavegen
is one, which have either full scale demonstration plant in operation
or are about to install plant. The development of early commercial
projects, similar to that being planned by npower renewables and
other utilities, will be an essential step in the movement of
wave power from interesting research to commercial reality. Only
after this step will it be possible to confirm the economic potential
of wave power.
3. Currently the UK government, along with
the devolved governments and the EU have support mechanisms in
place to assist the development of renewable technologies. The
Renewable Obligation Certificate regime has been a successful
mechanism for assisting more established technologies, such as
onshore wind. It has not assisted less developed technologies
and based on the current proposals will continue to fail in this
regard. The Marine Supply Obligation introduced by the Scottish
Executive, and tariff based mechanisms offered in a number of
EU countries offer the level of support that is essential for
early arrays of devices. It is essential that similar support
is available throughout the UK. Without such support, which is
primarily revenue based and so supports success, we will never
be able to confirm the opportunity offered by wave power. Whether
this support is based on an enhanced obligation regime (as is
likely to be proposed in Scotland) or on a feed-in tariff is a
detail. The important issue is the level of support.
4. Looking to the future it is, we believe,
unrealistic to imagine that electricity from wave power will be
as cheap as traditional fossil fuel sources. It will however be
a vital component of the future energy mix and one which ultimately
will have to complete with equivalent technologies such as offshore
wind.
13 June 2008
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