Britain backs world's first floating power station
Date: 12-Sep-01
Country: UK
Energy minister Brian Wilson yesterday committed 1.67 million pounds of government funds to a 2.7 million pound ($3.94 million) project which he said will help Britain achieve its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, blamed by many scientists for global warming.
"Wave power has a huge part to play in our drive for renewable power", said Wilson in a statement.
"Our oceans are a major potential energy source and can lead to a new industry for the UK in which I am determined that we should be world leaders", he said.
The new off-shore generator from green power company Wavegen will supply enough electricity for 1,400 homes after it is launched next summer from a new marine energy testing centre to be built in Orkney, Scotland.
Although Wavegen opened a shoreline power generator in late 2000 on the island of Islay, Scotland, wave power in Britain has not taken off in the way some proponents predicted when the technology was in its infancy in the 1980s.
The country's first commercial wave generator, Osprey (Ocean Swell Powered Renewable Energy) was destroyed by a summer storm in 1995.
Britain, which ranks low down on the European league table in terms of the amount of energy produced from renewable energy resources, declared in March it would invest 100 million pounds to boost green power and expects the renewable industry will be worth one billion pounds by 2010.
Last month the government announced the Renewables Obligation to help the country meet its target of producing 10 percent of electricity from green means by 2010. The obligation requires electricity companies to produce 10.4 percent of their output from non-polluting sources by 2011.
