Image

The body, called Wave Energy Scotland, will bring the best engineering and academic minds together to work on accelerating wave technology further.

Scotland Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism Fergus Ewing will provide further details on the plans during this week’s Parliamentary statement on marine energy.

The government’s move follows an announcement by Pelamis Wave Power that it has gone into administration after failing to secure enough funding to develop its wave energy technology.

The government said the development of wave energy has been held back due to the uncertainty in the energy sector.

Ewing said: "We want to encourage further innovation in wave energy development and we recognise the need for a bold new approach to supporting this emerging technology. There is also a lack of design convergence in wave energy with many different concepts in development, while tidal appears to be converging on a front-runner design.

"This means that while the tidal energy sector is ready to build array demonstration projects – the MeyGen project in the Pentland Firth is one such example – the wave energy sector must evolve further to gain the confidence of investors."

Scottish Renewables has welcomed the government’s decision to establish a wave energy technology development body.

Scottish Renewables senior policy manager Lindsay Leask said: "Capturing wave energy is a complex and demanding process, and although the sector is still in its infancy Scotland can rightly be said to hold a world lead in the development of this cutting-edge technology.

"The Scottish Government should be applauded for the creation of Wave Energy Scotland, which will provide crucial support to the home-grown Scottish companies who dominate the sector and allow collaboration on key shared engineering issues."

Image: Scotland Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism Fergus Ewing. Photo: Courtesy of The Scottish Government.