Edinburgh and Oxford University professors have estimated that about 25% of Europe’s tidal energy resources are in Scotland’s coastal areas. These areas have the potential to generate vast quantities of tidal, wind and wave power. It has also been said that tidal power generated in Scotland’s coastal areas can be equivalent to 43% of Scotland’s electricity consumption.
The University research says the area of Pentland Firth which lies between Orkney islands and the Scottish mainland has some of the fastest tidal currents in the UK and the potential location of tidal turbines in that area could generate the same amount of power as a nuclear power station, around 1.2GW of green energy – enough to power up to 750,000 homes, representing 8% of total UK electricity consumption (around 8 TWh).
There is a project aimed to develop and harvest the tidal resource of one of the most energetic sites in Europe, the MeyGen tidal stream energy project is going to harness the tidal energy resource of Pentland Firth area. It’s goal is to deliver a fully operational tidal power plant of 398MW by 2020, generating the equivalent electricity to power 40,000 Scottish homes. One of the problems of the MeyGen project is the connection to the UK National Electrical Grid, since Pertland Firth is a remote area but an agreement with UK National Grid have been achieved to secure the transmission of energy from the generating area to the mainland.
The Scottish Government is firmly committed to the development of a successful marine sustainable energy industry giving incentives to promote the sustainable energy resources and especially for the tidal energy because of the longterm nature of returns. Currently investors in tidal technology are rewarded with a payment of £40 per megawatt hour for energy generated from renewables, but this scheme will end in 2017. This could have serious implications for the nascent industry. However, the energy policy of Scotland is helping as well to the government’s commitment to decarbonise the power supply by 2030.