Marine Energy Industry News

Marine energy provider KPI OceanConnect has announced a new management structure and key regional appointments to support the delivery of its partnership approach for customers.The new structure will see the leadership of its trading business divided into regions covering APAC, EMEA, and Americas. New regional leads have been promoted from KPI OceanConnect’s existing management team. Thomas Lee is promoted to Head of APAC, and James Enston to Head of EMEA.Brian Coyne will continue in his current role as Head of Americas.

Tim Cornelius, CEO of global tidal developer Atlantis Resources has taken a seat on the Board of Directors of Ocean Energy Europe – the industry group for ocean renewable energy – by becoming a Lead Sponsor of the organisation. The move reflects Atlantis’ position as a leading developer of commercial tidal power projects and underpins its commitment to driving the market for ocean renewable energy. Following its acquisition of pioneering tidal company Marine Current Turbines earlier this year, Atlantis Resources now owns one of the largest and most diverse portfolios in the business, with a project pipeline of 600MW. This portfolio includes the 398MW MeyGen project, the world’s largest planned tidal stream array which is currently under construction in the Pentland Firth, Scotland.

'Wave & Tidal Energy Analysis to 2030 for US, Canada, the UK, Portugal, Australia and Republic of Korea (South Korea)' report issued. 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. 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.

An application from Marine Current Turbines, the UK tidal energy developer, to secure money from the European Union’s New Entrant Reserve (NER) scheme has been approved by the UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change. Marine Current Turbines’ application for its proposed tidal farm in Scotland’s Kyle Rhea will now go forward for consideration by the European Investment Bank. The EU’s NER scheme is a fund worth around EUR4.5 billion to support carbon capture and storage and innovative renewable projects, such as the Kyle Rhea tidal scheme, across the European Union. Marine Current Turbines (MCT) is one of four marine energy companies that have passed the UK Government’s criteria for the NER scheme.

With the advancement of ground-breaking innovation in the renewable marine energy industry, the Cromarty Firth Port Authority has had the opportunity to demonstrate that everything is possible and there is nothing that cannot be achieved via the facilities in the Firth. For many years, the Cromarty Firth has been recognised worldwide as a hub for Inspection, Repair and Maintenance of oil rigs and subsea engineering; however the growth of the renewable energy industry has seen the area and the Invergordon Service Base, become a major service facility for the renewables industry.

Wave energy developer Orecon, based in the South West of England, has hit stormy waters. CEO David Crisp said “I thought that after years of struggling for funding we had weathered the worst that the financial markets could throw at us. I was wrong. Earlier this year our venture capital funders withdrew their support, ironically since then we have won through to the final round of the £22m MRPF grant scheme (worth up to £6m), Carbon Trust Ventures have given their support to match fund third party investors and our UK and US patents have been granted.