The international marine energy industry is getting into its stride, starting wi ...

The international marine energy industry is getting into its stride, starting with Canada’s Bay of Funday in Nova Scotia, which will become home to tidal power technology. The UK tidal energy company Marine Current Turbines has agreed a partnership with Canada’s Minas Basin Pulp and Power to demonstrate and develop the technology and facilities in the Bay. The two companies intend to deploy a 1.5 MW tidal generator at a tidal power demonstration centre established by the Province of Nova Scotia, which will be connected to the region’s grid. Across the border in the US, Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) and Lockheed Martin have announced they have signed a letter of intent to collaborate in the development of a utility-scale wave power generation project. The two companies plan to enter an agreement under which OPT will provide its PowerBuoy technology, and Lockheed Martin will supply construction, systems integration, deployment, and operations and maintenance services for the proposed plant. In other moves in the marine energy industry, Vattenfall has announced that it has acquired 51% of the Irish development company for marine energy, Pandion. Under the agreement, marine energy developer Wavebob will own the remaining 49%. Pandion has applied for development sites on the west coast of Ireland, on which there are plans to use to build a 250 MW demonstration plant. Finally, Orkney based marine energy company Aquatera and the Taiwan based Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) have commenced a study to assess the potential for wave energy development in Taiwan, with the aim of selecting a technology to be installed at a test site from 2010-2011. The proposed installation is hoped to act as a catalyst to grow a wave industry in Taiwan with a capacity of 75 MW by 2025.