Marine Energy Technology News

Nordic marine energy technology company Minesto has developed a simulator to aid the development of its Deep Green marine power plant. According to Minestro, Deep Green is the only marine power plant that is able to cost efficiently produce electricity from low velocity tidal and ocean currents. The simulator has been developed in-house by Minesto’s own research and development department, and is in essence based on two existing open source programs: one for commercial flight simulation and one for marine vehicle simulation.

GL Garrad Hassan signs MOU with Taiwanese Industrial Technology Research Institute to develop Taiwan's offshore energy strategy. The offshore wind resource around the Taiwanese coast is considered excellent, with more than 6,000MW potential capacity at water depths of less than 50m. Earlier this year the Taiwanese government announced an extensive plan to speed up the deployment of offshore wind farm and promote green energy economics. Beginning with a demonstration project in 2015, offshore installation is planned to ramp up over the coming years and reach 1000 turbines and 3000MW by 2030.

'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.

The UMass Dartmouth-based New England Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC), and local and regional leaders, will mark the send-off of the barge as part of an effort to transform the region into an international hub of ocean-related energy technology research and development.

Scottish marine energy technology developer, AWS Ocean Energy, has started testing its new wave energy device in Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. The Inverness based company has deployed a 1/9th scale of its AWS-III device, a ring-shaped multi-cell surface-floating wave power system, the result of almost two years of intensive research and development work. AWS Ocean Energy is aiming to deploy a full-system prototype AWS-III during 2012 and a pre-commercial demonstrator plant during 2013.