Renewables From The Orkney Islands
Wind, waves and tides – the Orkney Islands have it all, but
they’ll need a little help to make a difference.
Look across the dark water from Stromness in the Orkney Islands, and
you see the twinkling lights of the Flotta Oil Terminal, dominating
the horizon and local economy. Yet just over the next headland is a
harbinger of a very different future - a wave-power generator on
test.
Orkney continues to reinvent itself both above and below water, from
a Pictish settlement to a naval bastion, and now from a hub of the
North Sea oil industry to the front line of Britain's low-carbon
power revolution. These remote islands have wind, waves and tides -
the raw material of renewable energy - in abundance. But, until now,
growth has been hampered by the limited capacity of the grid to
carry electricity back to the rest of the UK from a series of
islands that are physically closer to Norway than to London.
As the site for the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Orkney is
already an international hub for research into tidal and wave power.
The Pentland Firth, the turbulent waters dividing Orkney from the
north-eastern coast of Scotland, has some of the fastest tides in
the world, with speeds of up to ten knots. If this elemental force
could be tapped, it could produce up to ten gigawatts of power -
more than twice the electricity consumption of Scotland. But with
research on tidal energy still in its infancy, no one is quite ready
for it.
Strong tides are also found at the Fall of Warness, off the island
of Eday, where they reach speeds of almost eight knots. This is
where the EMEC (a private company owned a third each by the Carbon
Trust, Orkney Islands Council and the Highlands and Islands
Enterprise development trust) built its tidal-energy testing site.
Private developers lease EMEC infrastructure to test their devices
and measure the quality and quantity of the electricity produced.
The Carbon Trust estimates that marine energy around the UK could
produce one-fifth of the national electricity supply, on a par with
nuclear power.
But generating electricity from the ocean is not just a matter of
locating the strongest tides and installing a machine. The sea is
unforgiving and the tides flow in both directions. "We're building
an industry in places that, historically, mariners would have
avoided," says the EMEC's managing director, Neil Kermode.
Threats to survival
Along with strong waves and tides, Orkney's access to sheltered
water and human resources helped it secure the EMEC bid. The locale
boasts marine operations expertise, including diving and remotely
operated underwater vehicles and harbor tugs. Meanwhile, the
Stromness campus of Heriot-Watt University and various Orcadian
businesses, such as the environmental consultancy Aquatera, offer
experience in renewables. Gareth Davies, managing director of
Aquatera, estimates that the renewables sector in Orkney employs
about 180 people; that includes about six organizations with more
than ten staff each.
Heriot-Watt, whose roots are in Edinburgh, has offered a Master's
degree in renewable energy since 2004 and graduates provide a
valuable pool of talent for Orkney's renewables industry. The oil
and gas industry is another source of talent, as many of the skills
are transferable. Sandy Kerr, a Heriot-Watt lecturer and member of
the Orkney Renewable Energy Forum, says there is a push to ensure
that the UK owns the technology. He points out that Britain had a
lead in wind energy in the early 1980s.
“Germany and the Netherlands commercialised it and there are now
60,000 people employed on the Continent building these things [wind
turbines] and exporting them back to Britain," Kerr says. "There is
a desire not to let that happen again with wave and tidal."
Although they are late to it, wind's track record as a mature
technology is precisely the appeal for small island communities that
can't afford to waste money on speculative projects. For the people
of Orkney, sustainability is not just an abstract notion. Most of
the islands are flat and close to sea level, and so Orcadians expect
to see the effects of climate change soon. But something even more
immediate threatens their survival - as young people move away, the
islands' populations are dwindling. On the smaller islands, the
populations are in the hundreds. The term "mainland" refers to the
largest of the islands, where Stromness and the capital, Kirkwall,
are sited.
Orkney is so windswept that the only place where trees grow is in
the shelter of St Magnus, the medieval cathedral in Kirkwall. In
summer there is a constant breeze and in winter the winds regularly
reach 60mph. Commercial investors have already harnessed this
resource, building wind turbines throughout. This is unwelcome to
some, because there is nowhere to hide turbines in terrain as open
as Orkney's.
Yet, on the smaller islands, people see the commercial turbines as
inspirations for building their own. They hope community-owned
generators can boost the local economy and help solve social
problems such as fuel poverty by providing funds to insulate the old
stone farmhouses. Already the island of Westray has built a
community-owned turbine with money from the Big Lottery Fund. The
900Kw generator has pumped power into the National Grid since the
beginning of October 2009. Meanwhile, neighbouring islands,
including Stronsay, Eday and Sanday, also have plans in various
stages of funding and development approval.
Claiming a share
Despite the disappointing outcome from the UN climate-change talks
in Copenhagen last month, the UK has lofty goals of its own. It aims
to reduce its carbon emissions by 80 per cent on 1990 levels by
2050, while the Scottish government intends 50 per cent of the
electricity generated in Scotland to come from renewable sources by
2020.
Orkney is laying claim to a share of the renewables boom. Yet the
islands can generate more electricity than the undersea cables can
carry, and generators also pay a higher rate to deliver power to the
grid than competitors on mainland Britain, with price breaks
available to offshore windfarms but not islands. Some people suggest
exporting electricity to Norway instead, while others propose
converting the energy to hydrogen and exporting it by ship.
Yet progress is being made. In late 2009 the Scottish and Southern
Energy electricity company announced it had deployed "smart grid"
technology in Orkney, allowing greater numbers of renewables
generators to connect at a faster rate and lower cost. The company
also won a €75m grant from the European Parliament to build a
transmission hub in the Pentland Firth, with contracts expected to
be signed this month. Then, on 6 January, the Scottish government
approved a major upgrade to the Beauly-Denny power line, between
Inverness and Falkirk, to improve the flow of power from north to
south.
With its tremendous natural and human resources, the Orkney Islands
could be a significant plank of Britain's energy platform. But it
will need help from Westminster and Holyrood to make that happen.
Motion of the ocean
Tidal power works in a similar way to wind energy on land. The tides
turn giant underwater turbines and undersea cables transport the
energy produced back to shore, where it is converted to a suitable
voltage if necessary and fed into the National Grid.
Wave power involves harnessing oscillation - a device is mounted to
the sea floor or cliff walls, or held in place with stiff cables,
and part of it bobs up and down with the waves to produce the power.
Strong tides are not commonplace, so globally there is a greater
number of places suitable for producing wave power.
Neil Kermode of the European Marine Energy Centre says it is not
possible for wildlife such as seals or marine birds to get caught in
the wave-power devices, and the company is monitoring effects of the
tidal turbines. So far, it seems that animals are intelligent enough
to avoid them; more curious creatures make their investigations from
downstream.
The commercial potential of marine energy is not yet known, though
Kermode speculates the technology could be making money, albeit on a
small scale, within four years and using mass production within 20
years.
If you compare the position of renewables today with that of
aviation, "We are about where the Wright brothers were," Kermode
says. "We've just proved that heavier-than-air flight is possible,
but we've got a huge distance to go before we get to what we'd
regard as commercial passenger aircraft."