USA: ReportsnReports Announces Marine Power Report

ReportsnReports.com has added “Marine Power (Wave and Tidal) – Installed Capacity, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Profiles of Technology Developers and Key Country Analysis to 2030” market research report to its offering.

Governments are embracing marine power as they attempt to combat climate change & an increasing dependence on fossil fuel and the UK has huge potential for marine power and is considered the most attractive destination to develop marine projects in Europe states this new research report.

It says development in the ocean energy sector could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, create direct and indirect employment, and lead to the economic development of coastal areas. It shows that the marine energy industry is in the emerging stages of development, and the UK is home to the R&D resources needed to further develop these power generation technologies. However, the industry will have to find ways to cut costs in order to win the world over.

Energy from the ocean could play a vital role in the UK’s ambition to achieve an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050, with the UK government setting a target to develop 2,000 megawatts (MW) of marine installed capacity by 2020. It was estimated by the Department of Energy and Climate Change that the country has wave energy potential of approximately 50 terawatt-hours(TWh) per year and tidal energy potential of approximately 17 TWh/year, which represents an enormous 50% share of Europe’s marine potential.

This research on the marine power market says, at a global level, while the ocean energy industry is still young, it holds the potential to fight the current reliance on fossil fuel generation. Ocean energy is the costliest of all renewable power technologies, with wave energy technology holding a capital cost between $9,000/ kilowatts (kW) and $12,500/kW, and tidal energy technology having a capital cost ranging between $8,000/kW and $9,500/kW. The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), defined as the cost incurred in generating a unit of power by a power generating technology, averages at $0.49/kWh and $0.39/kWh for wave energy and tidal energy technology respectively. Offshore wind energy technology has an LCOE of around $0.263/kWh, and marine energy must strive to reach a similar pricing before it becomes a competitive energy source. However, future technological developments are expected to drastically decrease cost of wave energy projects.

Thanks to this capacity, the UK has become a hub for marine research centers and leading marine energy companies, and boasts the world’s second largest tidal range in the Severn Estuary. The country is testing a large number of wave and tidal technologies with the support of the European Marine Energy Centre, which has 14 full-scale testing berths in the Orkneys region. As a result of this, the UK is heading the innovation race in marine energy technology, boasting the highest number of projects in a single country currently being actively demonstrated.

The UK Marine Energy Program, established in 2011, focuses on augmenting the research, development and deployment ability of tidal and wave energy devices. The Scottish government is also playing a major role in the development of the UK’s marine energy industry, introducing a number of schemes to harness the energy found in some of world’s strongest tides in the northern part of Scotland.

In order to promote renewable energy and attain an ambitious carbon emissions cut, the UK has introduced the Renewables Obligation Order, which requires electricity providers to supply a certain quota of electricity produced from renewable sources. Electricity providers are issued Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity produced from renewable energy sources, and the government provides certain technologies with more than one ROC per MWh of generation in order to increase support for emerging, higher risk technologies. Power generated from wave, tidal stream, or tidal barrage sources receive two ROCs per MWh, while an enhanced tidal stream receives three ROCs per MWh and enhanced wave receives five ROCs per MWh generated. The UK government are therefore putting their money where their mouth is, and encouraging marine energy generation.

The US government’s Production Tax Credit (PTC) for electricity generated from qualified renewable sources currently pays $0.011/ per kilowatt hour (kWh), and the Renewable Electricity Plan in Nova Scotia, Canada, similarly offers a Community-based Feed-In Tariff (ComFIT) of CAD$0.625/kWh ($0.632/kWh) for tidal projects connected to the grid for distribution. The Marine Renewable Commercialization Fund (MRCF) in Scotland, administered by the Carbon Trust, has also provided £15m ($24.07m) to be distributed before 2015.

[mappress]

Press release, October 11, 2012