Current account

Mike Farish talks to the BWEA’s wave and tidal development
manager about what lies ahead

Though investment in and government support for offshore wind is now accelerating rapidly, the potential of wave and tidal resources remains not merely untapped but under appreciated. This is the view of Oliver Wragg, a man whose job as wave and tidal development manager for the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) means he is at the forefront of efforts to change the situation. However, he is confident that the situation is beginning to change in a positive manner. Not least of all for the fact that the BWEA’s annual Wave & Tidal Conference is now a well established event. This year’s event, which takes place at the QEII Conference Centre in London on 4 March, is the seventh in the series.

But if that is the most public manifestation of the steady growth of interest in wave and tidal energy, there are other less immediately high profile factors Wragg feels he can identify. Perhaps the most significant of those is simply his estimation that as many as a third of the BWEA’s 560 member organisations have a genuine interest in the development of the sector - whether as technology developers, service providers or energy suppliers - even if that interest may currently be more in the form of a watching brief than active participation.

In addition, the technologies involved are progressing beyond the purely experimental stage and, as Wragg observes, reaching the point where their embodiments can be described as “commercial prototypes”. But the plural is important and more is involved than just the obvious difference between extracting energy from the surface motion of waves and the submerged water flows of the tidal realm.

Convergence

In the latter case, Wragg confirms there is already an obvious established methodology - tidal power will be exploited by means of submarine turbines, whether fixed to the seabed or floating above it in a way that allows them to manoeuvre according to the direction of the flow. But in the former there is as yet no recognisable technical ‘convergence’ to report. So far no single technology has demonstrated clear superiority as the way to harness wave energy with the greatest efficiency.
Nevertheless, several projects to identify what that technology could be, as well as to develop even more efficient tidal machines, are well underway. There are at least four marine energy devices in the water at the EMEC test facility in the Orkneys.

Right now, though, Wragg identifies the work to formulate a Marine Action Plan as the priority for all those involved in the burgeoning industry at a more general level. This particular initiative, launched last year by the Department for Energy & Climate Change, is effectively a wide-ranging consultation exercise to identify the priorities for future actions in the area.
As Wragg explains, the UK’s geography means that it enjoys a huge natural advantage over its European counterparts in the race to develop wave and tidal energy. The UK has as much as 50 per cent of the whole continent’s potential tidal resource at its disposal and perhaps 35 per cent of the wave equivalent. Moreover the UK has, he says, already established itself as the global leader in relevant technology development. Quite simply: “This is an opportunity that we cannot afford to lose.”

More information on the BWEA Wave & Tidal Conference can be found at www.bwea.com/marine/wave-tidal-conference/