Marine renewables devices

Over the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to look at three different (distinctly different) marine renewables devices, and the thing that's really impressed me is how much more credible they are than similar devices were only two years ago.

The amount and quality of engineering thinking, simplification and improvement is striking.

The EMEC Board took a trip out to Eday, to inspect the tidal site and the OpenHydro turbine (photo above) this week, and it was really exciting to see this impressive piece of kit in the Eday tidal stream. It wasn't even one of the three I've mentioned above!

New Value of ROCs Model

Finally, the new Value of ROCs Model is available.

Building from the Red Book dataset, it allows users to develop forecasts of the numbers of ROCs which may be available in the future, depending on the users' assumptions on the proportions of each renewable technology which may come to productive fruition.

We like to think it offers the most powerful, flexible and justifiable forecast for ROC value now available: and of course it includes all of the changes in the Energy White Paper - banding, RPI linkage retention, grandfathering and cofiring rule changes.

Cap on ROC values in Energy White Paper

Has anyone else noticed that the Energy White Paper has effectively capped the value of ROCs after 2015/16 when the headroom mechanism kicks in?

Assuming the 15% target has been met, the target for any year will be set at 6% more than the anticipated delivery of ROCs in that year - effectively limiting the recycle value to 6% of the buyout premium. This must be a slap in the face for people with long term ROC eligible projects (I'm thinking onshore wind), where this was going to be a big part of revenues in later years.

The flip side is that if (and it's a biggish if) additional renewables capacity comes through as a result of banding, at least the bottom won't fall out of the market.

All-Energy 2007 - "but because it is haaard"

Another May, another All-Energy conference in Aberdeen.

Over the years, the mood seems to have gone up and down at All-Energy, but vibe this year was very positive. Over the years the suit count has increased, but the last couple of years had a rather downbeat feel, as if the renewables community was reaching the conclusion that this was all too difficult.

This year, there was a certain resolution amongst the attendees, as if the industry had collectively adopted Jack Kennedy's ethos - "we chose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are haaard".

The release of the Energy White Paper, which I'll be blogging on later, added a frisson of excitement, and the full range of renewables were well represented. By all accounts, we matched the total attendance from last year by lunchtime on the first day!

Scottish Power and Hammerfest Strom

The tidal industry really seems to be picking up momentum, as Scottish Power announces that it has formed a new company to pursue a tidal opportunity in the Pentland Firth, using the technology tested by Statoil in the Hammerfest Strom project. Details from Scottish Power are here.

The press release talks about testing in Scottish Waters (EMEC anyone?), before an international roll out of the technology.

Sounds like the three years testing in Hammerfest has been pretty successful.