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E N I R A M : S K R A P Y G R ENVEoicing Support y oss Fairle Words: R
anuary saw the launch of the UK's first Marine Energy Park by Minister of State Greg Barker. Burges Salmon was privileged to host the launch bringing together key players in marine energy from the region. The coalition Government has spoken in warm terms about the marine energy sector since it came into office nearly two year ago and announced a new policy to create 8 Marine Energy Parks. It is hoped that these parks will drive innovation and growth through the clustering of marine activities. Analogies have been drawn by the Minister about the success of clustering in Silicon Valley for the tech sector.
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Scilly with a focus around the ports, research facilities and industrial clusters in Cornwall, Plymouth and Bristol. The area has access to a significant wave and tidal resource as well as offshore wind. RWE Npower has proposals for the Atlantic Array offshore wind farm in the Bristol Channel and Marine Current Turbines original demonstrator was situated off Lynmouth. In addition to that, of course, we have the Wave Hub off the coast of Cornwall near Hayle, a grid connected site for the testing and development of marine energy devices. Falmouth has recently announced its Falmouth Bay test site (FAB Test), establishing an area to test scale models of wave energy devices, and the universities in the region are making great efforts in focusing on marine energy as a source of expertise. The launch of the prospectus for the Marine Park is the first step. It is important not to underestimate the work that has gone into that and the challenges of bringing together different stakeholders, local and national Government, local enterprise partnerships, developers, academia and industry in a collaborative partnership. The big question, however, is what will this achieve? Cynics may point to Marine Energy Parks as an interesting development with a glossy
Whilst it is easy to be critical about the amount of support being provided to renewables from this coalition Government, one has to accept that the Government's recent proposal to increase the Renewables Obligation Certificate banding support for marine energy technology to 5 ROC's across the UK has been a huge boost for the sector and will hopefully accelerate the deployment of demonstration and possibly even early commercial projects.
brochure, and the unfortunate thing is that,
The Southwest Marine Energy Park extends from Bristol to Cornwall and the Isles of
re-assuring to have Greg Barker reiterate
Wind&WaveCONNECT
minus Government support and a voice at Central Government level, they may be proved right. It is all very well to establish a cluster but if that cluster speaks with a lone voice in one region of the country, competes with other clusters in other areas, does not have Central Government support backing and lacks funding, it will face an enormous challenge. As a participant in the launch meeting, I am not so downbeat. It was the commitment of the Government.
It is hoped that these parks will drive innovation and growth through the clustering of marine activities