The Government has established a new UK Marine Energy Programme, that is focusing on enhancing the UK marine energy sector’s ability to develop and deploy wave and tidal energy devices at a commercial scale.
Through the Programme we will:
- Put in place a coherent programme of policies across Government, led by DECC, to enable the UK Marine Energy sector to move from prototype testing to commercial deployment over the coming 5 years;
- Provide a direct link between DECC Ministers and sector stakeholders.
The Marine Energy Programme Board
The Marine Energy Programme Board, which draws together key stakeholders from across the marine energy sector, will play a central role in advising Ministers what actions the Programme should address to advance the industry.
The first Marine Energy Programme Board, chaired by Greg Barker, was held in Exeter on 31st January. Representatives from across industry including Utilities, industrials, technology developers, financiers and the Devolved Administrations were present.
The meeting, established three Working Groups to take the work of the Programme forward. These will cover:
- Support needed for small scale arrays and early commercial deployment
This group will be asked to provide recommendations back to the Board on what level of capital and revenue support is necessary to realise the development and deployment of small scale pre-commercial arrays in the medium term.
- Planning and consenting issues
The MMO have kindly offered to lead the facilitation of this group and are currently drawing up a terms of reference and membership structure.
- Knowledge sharing though a Marine Intelligence Network
Facilitating knowledge sharing that is beneficial to the market as a whole has been cited as one way to reduce risk and encourage investment. The Crown Estate and DECC will lead this group in partnership to explore this idea further and discuss the possible creation of a Marine Intelligence Network.
Working Groups will report their progress back to the Programme Board.
In addition to this, Ministers have set out a real vision for marine energy in the UK to encourage the clustering of activities through marine energy parks, that aims to bring together manufacturing, expertise and other activities to drive the marine sector forward to commercialisation.