£18m fund for Scottish marine power

The Scottish government is offering companies developing wave and tidal renewable technologies millions of pounds of support in a bid to speed up commercial-scale deployment

Renewable energy firms looking to develop large marine energy arrays in Scottish waters have until 1 August to apply for a share of the devolved government’s £18 million Marine Renewables Commercialisation Fund (MRCF).

The programme, which is being administered by the Carbon Trust, aims to ensure the development of at least two marine energy projects, and is offering up to £9 million of support for individual projects over the next three years.

As with the UK government’s Marine Energy Array Demonstrator scheme, which closed on 1 June, firms applying for the funding must have already completed a full-scale prototype demonstration.

Preference is to be given to developers with lease agreements already in place with the Crown Estate and with grid connections agreed.

The MRCF forms part of £35 million of support the Scottish government has pledged for the wave and tidal sector over the next three years, and is in addition to its £103 million Renewable Energy Investment Fund, a portion of which will also be spent on marine technology.

The Scottish government wants projects that secure funding under the MRCF to be exporting power to the national grid in 2016.

Seven of the world’s eight tidal demonstration projects are based in Scotland’s waters, including a 1MW turbine close to Orkney operated by ScottishPower Renewables, which successfully completed its first testing period in May and is already providing electricity to the island of Eday.

ScottishPower plans to apply the same technology in Scotland’s first tidal turbine array, which it already has planning permission to build. It will generate 10MW of power.