Offshore renewables deal signed by leading power companies

Monday, 23 January 2012 20:55

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Power generation leader Alstom and SSE Renewables have signed a joint venture agreement to develop the Costa Head Wave Project. 

This new wave energy site is located in water depths of 60 – 75m approximately 5km to the north of Orkney Mainland within the Crown Estate's Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Strategic Area.

Detailed site surveys and an environmental impact assessment (EIA) will be carried out to develop the site with an initial phase of around 10MW, before moving on to install the full site capacity of 200MW.

John Thouless, Head of Marine Development at SSE Renewables said “We look forward to working together with Alstom on the successful development of this important wave site.” 

Alstom also voiced their enthusiasm for the partnership with Jérôme Pécresse, President, Alstom Renewable Power commenting, "We are delighted to announce our agreement with SSE Renewables, one of the leading developer of marine energy in the world, to develop Costa Head, which is the largest wave energy site being developed today in the world.

The two companies are working on the necessary permits and will use wave energy converters technology currently being developed by AWS Ocean Energy Ltd who are a wave energy development company based in Inverness. 

AWS is focused on the development and delivery of its AWS-III wave energy converter which has already been tested in Loch Ness.

Full scale component testing will commence in 2012 with the support of the Scottish Enterprise-administered WATERS fund (Wave and Tidal Energy: Research, Development and Demonstration Support), with a full-scale prototype planned for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre in 2014.

Simon Grey, Chief Executive of AWS Ocean Energy Ltd said " “The selection of the AWS-III system for this exciting and ground-breaking project is a significant endorsement of our technology and team.

“We firmly believe that the AWS-III will become the established choice for utility scale offshore wave power generation.  We look forward to working with Alstom and SSE to deliver Costa Head “ 

Jérôme Pécresse added that the project demonstrates Alstom's "involvement in all renewable energy sources in Scotland, the potential of which is considerable."