How did Scotland become a leader in wave and tidal power research?
O’Brien: We have a long history of marine (energy research) going back to the ‘70s and the last oil crisis when money was poured into wave development by both the Scottish and UK governments. Our research, particularly out of the University of Edinburgh, again, is regarded as world leading. They head up the UK’s flagship research program, which is called SuperGen Marine Energy Research Consortium. So it’s not just a Scottish lead, the UK as a whole is a leading light within the marine energy field. But Scotland, particularly because of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) being based here — we were lucky enough to have had the vision to build that when we did. Pelamis Wave Power was the first machine on site the day the EMEC opened, but it’s taken a while for the industry to get to a point where they could use EMEC. What we’re now seeing is that there will be a rapid increase in the number of devices being tested at the site. Aquamarine Power, for instance, have just launched their
