Recently the EU Commission announced funding for 23 European renewable-energy projects to the tune of €1.2 Billion.
The funding has been awarded across 16 different member states, and a wide range of technologies, including two tidal-power projects from the UK: Scottish Power Renewables (SPR) Sound of Islay Demonstration Tidal Array; and Marine Current Turbines (MCT) Kyle Rhea Tidal Turbine Array.
The awards were made by the EU for “financing of commercial demonstration projects that aim at the environmentally safe capture and geological storage of CO2 as well as demonstration projects of innovative renewable energy technologies…”, although there were no Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects included in the list.
This is really good news for the marine energy sector and the UK as a whole, as substantial funding is required to unlock this potential source of power – it is estimated that energy from waves or tides has the potential to generate 27 GW of power in the UK by 2050.
Funding is conditional on certain knowledge sharing requirements being met and took into account the amount of renewable energy produced. We’ve listed all the projects below, ordered by the cost per MWh. This shows the current gap between established renewables technologies such as wind-turbines and newer technologies such as wave energy.
