The Crown Estate, which oversees the U.K.’s sea beds, awarded leasing rights to six wave and four tidal projects in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters. The competition winners came from a pool of 20 companies, which had proposed a total of 42 projects. The winning projects will be commercial-scale operations and will represent the largest marine-energy concentration in the world. Their combined generating capacity of 1.2 GW greatly exceeds the original capacity target of 700 megawatts (MW).
The winners of the first marine energy leasing round are:
Wave:
SSE Renewables Developments Limited (Perth, Scotland), 200 MW for Costa Head site
Aquamarine Power Limited (Glasgow, Scotland) and SSE Renewables Developments Limited, 200 MW for Brough Head site
ScottishPower Renewables (Glasgow), 50 MW for Marwick Head site
E.ON UK (Coventry, England), 50 MW for West Orkney South site
E.ON UK, 50 MW for West Orkney Middle South site
Pelamis Wave Power Limited (Edinburgh, Scotland), 50 MW for Armadale site
Tidal:
SSE Renewables Developments (UK) Limited (Perth), 200 MW for Westray South site
SSE Renewables Holdings (UK) Limited and OpenHydro Site Development Limited (Dublin, Ireland), 200 MW for Cantick Head site
Marine Current Turbines (Bristol, England), 100 MW for Brough Ness site
ScottishPower Renewables, 100 MW for Ness of Duncansby site
