Policy and Innovation Group releases 2020 ocean energy review report for UK

The University of Edinburgh’s Policy and Innovation Group, in collaboration with Wave Energy Scotland, has published the UK Ocean Energy Review 2020 report.

The report is an expansion of the UK chapter of the IEA-OES Annual Report 2020 and summarises the progress of wave, tidal stream and tidal range technology, markets and policy achieved by the UK in the last year.

It outlines the UK’s current supporting policies for ocean energy, and associated strategy at national and regional levels.

According to the report, despite being a challenging year, 2020 saw continuous innovative cross-border collaborations, deployment of state-of-the-art projects and offshore tests being undertaken for the ocean energy sector.

The UK ocean energy sector continued to reach new milestones this year, with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) achieving the world’s first ocean energy Renewable Energy Testing Laboratory (RETL) designation, the highest international appointment for marine energy test laboratories awarded by the International Electrotechnical Commission – Renewable Energy System (IECRE).

The year 2020 also marked the first year of the TIGER project (Interreg’s largest ever project, led by ORE Catapult) to evidence tidal stream cost reduction and Nova Innovation’s world first tidal array successfully powering the Shetland Islands for over five years.

With the fourth round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme of 2021 to be open for bids from the tidal sector, a dedicated policy and revenue support for ocean energy would deliver significant sustainable economic benefits, according to the report.

The paper also provides a comprehensive summary of current and planned deployment of UK projects at UK test centres and demonstration zones accompanies an update on sector progress from research and development at key institutions.

In addition to this, the report provides an update on key public funding programs. Finally, the report concludes with a summary of relevant national events held in the UK last year and the ones that are expected to be held this year.

Leading organisations including the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Scottish Government, Marine Energy Wales, European Marine Energy Centre, Wave Energy Scotland, Orbital Marine Power, Nova Innovation, SIMEC Atlantis Energy, Mocean and many more, contributed to producing this report.

The Policy and Innovation Research Group is part of the Institute for Energy Systems (IES), which is one of the six research institutes within the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh.