Scottish public bodies appoint financial advisor for MeyGen tidal energy project

Scotland’s national economic development agency Scottish Enterprise and its manager of land and sea assets Crown Estate Scotland have selected an Edinburgh-based consultancy to provide technical advice services for investments in the MeyGen tidal energy project.

The contract for consulting services – worth around £65,000 – has been awarded to Baldock Energy, a company with technical understanding of the tidal stream sector combined with sufficient experience and knowledge about the industry.

Baldock Energy will be tasked with providing technical advice services related to the investments in the MeyGen project for a period of three years, starting from late November 2022, unless terminated earlier in accordance with the subsequent agreement, according to the Scottish public bodies which hired the consultant.

The company is led by Andy Baldock, who has more than 20 years of experience in renewable energy sector, with a special focus on marine energy.

Baldock has been involved in almost all the key UK marine energy programs since 2004, including previous work on MeyGen tidal energy project, as the funders’ technical adviser for the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) – formerly DECC – as well as for the Crown Estate Scotland, Scottish government, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

According to the contract, Baldock Energy will use the subcontractors in its core team for the project, including Blackfish Engineering for the design turbine, foundation and systems engineering; Morek for the marine operations, with back-up from Tadek if required; and Black & Veatch for resource and performance assessment and other general engineering. Also, Joe Hussey will act as assistant project manager.

The consultants will provide funders with technical advisor input during MeyGen project’s operational phase, which will cover the review of annual operating budget, including the underlying technical and operational assumptions for the ongoing budget and revenue.

The goal of the produced report is to confirm any likely adverse effects, according to the contract details.

Also, the consultants will coordinate and chair monthly and longer quarterly meetings with MeyGen project’s team and the funders, as well as providing general support and advice on issues that may arise as required.

Developed by SIMEC Atlantis Energy, the MeyGen tidal energy scheme already had 6MW operational capacity installed as part of its fist phase, which accounted for 75% of the total global tidal stream output at the end of 2021, marking a huge achievement for this landmark project.

The project has full consent, all necessary permissions and grid capacity to install additional 80MW of tidal stream capacity on the MeyGen site.

In July 2022, SIMEC Atlantis secured the UK government’s support to build the first 28MW for MeyGen, as part of the project’s second phase, through the country’s fourth round of contracts for difference (CfD) at a strike price of £178.54 per MWh.

More recently, the company appointed Mark Evans as project development director to take overall responsibility of the delivery of the second phase of the project, backed up with Lumin Capital, an international corporate finance advisory firm, that will deal with financial aspects of the development.

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