The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Orkney, Scotland, have signed an agreement to join forces with Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre (PTEC) to develop a large-scale tidal energy site off the Isle of Wight, England.
They describe the Island site, off the coast of St Lawrence as, to “accommodate commercial tidal energy array deployments.”
The PTEC project on the south of the Isle of Wight has been under development for around eight years. It has supporters and detractors locally.
Isle of Wight council originally invested £1m of tax-payers money in the company in 2013, but recently took the decision to relinquish two thirds of their shareholding, with no gain, and agree to extend the term of the original loan by five years.
What is PTEC?
PTEC is a 30 MW tidal energy demonstration facility 2.5 km south of the Isle of Wight, with potential expansion capacity up to 300 MW. After signing off the agreements last week, EMEC claim they are already working on site development and optimisation activities. They say this will build on the early work done by the PTEC team to get the site consented in 2016.
Bringing skills learned in Orkney to IW
EMEC say they plan to bring skills learned in Orkney to the Isle of Wight and that making the PTEC site deployment-ready will be a significant boost to the UK tidal energy sector.
PTEC say they have re-established its operational status to move to the next stage of development and pulled in EMEC expertise to get the site ready for commercial scale tidal energy technologies now coming to market.
Hydrogen generation as well
Within this, PTEC have also said they are exploring opportunities for offshore green hydrogen generation.
The announcement from EMEC says that Isle of Wight site will be eligible to bid into future UK Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation rounds enabling tidal energy technologies developed in the UK to deliver predictable low carbon energy.
