16 March 2010 11:49
E.ON delighted by Orkney wave power win
E.ON has welcomed today's news that it has been successful in winning a marine power zone in the Crown Estate's Round 1 scheme.
The company has won a zone around 5km off the west coast of Orkney that it expects will be large enough for a wave power development of up to 50MW.
Dave Rogers, Regional Director of Renewables for E.ON, said: "We're absolutely delighted to have been successful in Round 1and look forward to bringing this exciting project to fruition.
"We're already having a wave power device built for us in Scotland and we intend to take that up to Orkney later this year for testing so things are starting to move in marine power, which has incredible potential in the UK.
"What's clear is that, by starting with these relatively small test projects, we can learn vital lessons that will allow us, in the future, to develop much larger schemes that can make a real difference to both the UK's power generation and also to the fight against climate change."
E.ON is currently having a Pelamis P2 750kW built at Leith Docks in Edinburgh. The device will be towed up to the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney later this year for testing.
The P2 is the first second generation wave energy device to be tested and will be 180m long, around 50m longer than the existing Pelamis. It is expected to be considerably more efficient than the first generation device
Roger Bright CB, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate said: "I am delighted to announce that E.ON has been awarded the West Orkney South and West Orkney Middle South sites to develop 100MW of wave energy power in Pentland Firth And Orkney Waters, the world's first commercial wave and tidal leasing round.
"The 1.2GW of installed capacity proposed by the wave and tidal energy developers for 2020, shows the world that marine energy can produce meaningful amounts of electricity and offers a real alternative to conventional power production. The long term prospects for this growing industry are exceptionally bright, with vast amounts of untapped energy in the seas all around the UK. It will create new businesses and jobs as well as attracting inward investment."
Ends
Notes to editors:
An animation of the Pelamis device is available to download in broadcast quality by going to http://eon-uk.com/media/default.aspx and registering on the video gallery page.
- E.ON is one of the UK's leading power and gas companies - generating and distributing electricity, and retailing power and gas - and is part of the E.ON group, one of the world's largest investor-owned power and gas companies. We employ over 16,000 people in the UK and around 88,000 worldwide;
- E.ON's retail business is a leading energy supplier in the UK with around 5.5 million electricity and gas customers, covering domestic, SME and industrial. E.ON also offers central heating and boiler care;
- The generation business produces enough electricity to cater for the needs of around eight million homes from a portfolio of world-class gas-, coal- and oil-fired power stations;
- We're one of the leading renewable generators in the UK, with 20 wind farms located from Cornwall to Northern Ireland. We own and operate one of the UK's largest dedicated biomass power stations at Lockerbie. Combined, our renewable portfolio generates enough green energy to power the homes in a city the size of Manchester;
- Our green development portfolio could power over a million homes and displace the emission of almost two million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by building new onshore and offshore wind farms, biomass power stations, and tidal stream and wave power schemes;
- Our target is to cut the carbon released by each kW of electricity we generate by 10% between 2005-2012, having already reduced it by 20% since 1990;
- We have 1,500MW of renewable capacity under development;
- We are investing £50 million in new technologies and approaches over 10 years, through the Energy Technologies Institute.
For more information contact:
Jonathan Smith on 024 7618 3676 or jonathan.smith@eon-uk.com