The Crown Estate has announced that it has received 42 bids from 20 organisations for Pentland Firth leases. Apparently lease applications for sites from 10 MW to 300 MW have been received, across a range of technologies and technology types (wave and tidal), and from small developers all the way up to large multi-national energy companies (I wonder if they mean oil companies, utilities or both?)
It seems to us that there is some risk here that bidders may be tempted to "land-bank", tying up sites without serious near-term development plans. I hope the Crown Estate is sensible enough to try to make sure that only really credible companies are awarded leases in the most energetic areas. We worry that putting today's devices into the Pentland Firth is like racing a Model T Ford around Brands Hatch - pushing early stage technology too far.
So while we're pleased at the level of interest, we hope that lessees are conservative in rolling out their technologies to less energetic sites first.
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