Blue Economy
Blue innovations need investors with a broad visionary look
“Although the tidal turbine is intended as an export product, our main markets are currently still in the Netherlands and Great Britain. The governments in both countries opted to introduce market forces several years ago by adopting a tender-based system. As experience has shown, the free market competition model doesn’t work for industries that are still in the implementation phase. Just consider previous experiences in the wind turbine manufacturing industry; the entire industry left the Netherlands as a result of indecisive government policies (withdrawal of subsidies, and costs eventually dropped. Wind and solar have since become
introduction of market forces). We need to make sure tidal turbines
mature markets with a huge global turnover of 220 billion euros.
don’t suffer the same fate.”
In other words, when comparing different types of green energy, it’s important to factor in the technology’s current development
What else needs to be done in addition to setting up
phase. That’s the most important cost factor. ‘Solar and wind’ cur-
implementation funds? “The Dutch are known to be water
rently have a finance cost of four percent. In the case of tidal energy,
experts around the world. That’s just a given. The next level,
that figure now stands at ten percent. As a result, tidal energy is still
generating energy from water, is simply the logical next step,
relatively expensive. The market is small and domestic.
especially in combination with our delta technology. We should be embracing tidal energy a lot more. The technology is more than
There’s a great amount of global interest in tidal turbines, and
ready, and there’s no lack of tidal currents; just go sailing between
you’re aiming to supply Nepal and Japan in future. What sort of
the Scottish islands and witness the Atlantic flowing to and from the
problems have you run into while upscaling the product?
North Sea twice a day.” ≈
24 Ocean Summit: Future of the Ocean