Tuesday 5 January 2010

Pelamis and Vattenfall to develop Aegir wave energy project

www.electric.co.uk
30th of December 2009

Pelamis Wave Power, a Scottish energy developer, has inked a joint contract to develop a huge green project off Shetland Islands with Vattenfall, a European energy giant. The cost of the wave power scheme is estimated at $100 million. After completion, the Aegir wave power project is expected to become the country's largest, with approximately 26 of Pelamis Wave Power' 180m long P2 machines installed. The green initiative will generate at least 200MW of energy capacity, enough to power about 13,000 homes per year and to reduce Scotland's 2020 carbon emissions up to 42 per cent.

The first phase of the project will be installed by 2014, if the planning application is approved by the local government, and the planned underwater cable linking Shetland and Scotland's mainland is installed. At the inauguration of Vattenfall's new office in Edinburgh, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond was pleased with the wave project and said that the joint initiative shows both energy firms' confidence in Scotland's huge marine energy potential.

Earlier this year, WWF released the report 'The Power of Scotland Renewed', based on the study of energy analyst Garrad Hassan. The WWF research states that there is a huge possibility to boost power generation from renewable sources in the next two decades, resulting in green energy meeting 60 to 143 per cent of Scotland's projected yearly electricity requirement by 2030. Meanwhile according to a report published in August by the Marine Energy Group, over 12,000 jobs in marine renewables could contribute £2.5 billion to Scotland's economy by 2020.

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