Wave energy set to turn the tide

“I wouldn’t open the door just now,” says Jacob Ahlqvist, as a hailstorm drums on the roof of a steel hut at Lyness on the Island of Hoy.

Mr Ahlqvist works for Ocean Power Delivery, and at anchor close by is the company’s prototype wave energy device, known as Pelamis.

Such developments could be the future, delegates at a key wave and tidal power conference in London are being told this week.
And they are told that marine energy needs more financial support to help the industry get established as quickly as possible.

Some 520 miles north, on the Orkney Islands, the Ocean Power Delivery team of wave energy pioneers couldn’t agree more.

This is the site for the world’s biggest wave farm so far, and in this harsh environment they need all the help they can get.

At the moment it is twice as expensive to produce an hour’s worth of electricity using wave power than to do the same thing with wind power.

But Richard Yemm, chief executive and founder of Ocean Power Delivery, says that is only because the technology is still at an early stage.

“We’re currently at about half the cost of wind when it started, so far from being expensive, we’re actually very cheap,” he says, promising that within five to 10 years wave power will be as cheap as wind power.

BBC