New industry support confirms UK's lead in marine energy sector

The Carbon Trust is funding a series of new projects as part of a £3.5 million programme to accelerate the sector’s development and cement the UK’s lead in renewable marine power.

• Accelerating the development of new marine energy device concepts:
  Two devices have already been identified and represent a radical departure from existing marine energy concepts. The Carbon Trust’s initiative will assess the performance and cost uncertainties surrounding these devices, and continue the search for more device concepts capable of delivering a step change in the cost of marine energy.
• Cost reduction of component technologies:
  By investigating technologies established in land-based applications and studying new engineering innovations, the MEA will help develop lower cost marine energy components. Key areas that have significant costs are being targeted, including: drive trains, structural materials and mooring systems.
• Installation, operation and maintenance of marine devices:
  The Carbon Trust is working with the more established marine energy players, offering support with the deployment and running of their devices – an area which currently makes up a significant cost component of marine energy. By making off shore engineering expertise and expert consultancy available, the Carbon Trust will facilitate innovative, cost saving solutions for the marine industry.

Tom Delay, Chief Executive of the Carbon Trust, said:
“The UK is a hotbed of innovation for these key technologies ... we are confident one or more marine energy devices could reach commercialisation and widespread market adoption over the next 5-10 years.”

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology could be cost effective within a decade

A research and development programme will be delivered by the Carbon Trust’s preferred partners, the University of Cambridge and The Technology Partnership, to turn solar PV into a cost-effective energy source. The ultimate aim of the research is to develop the technology to enable the cost-effective deployment of more than 1GW of organic PV by 2017, which could deliver annual savings of over 1 million tonnes of CO2.

PV systems created by the Carbon Trust’s programme will have some advantages over the existing PV technology.

• Inherently expensive to produce and handle, requiring batch processes;
• Made using energy intensive, high temperature processes in a clean-room environment, leading to a high level of embodied carbon emissions;
• Relatively high performance but with limited potential for improvement, due to the underlying physics.
  
  

• Cheaper to produce than silicon wafers, using low-cost, lightweight materials;
• Easier to produce in large volumes, using roll-to-roll printing processes onto a flexible substrate;
• Less energy intensive to manufacture, with lower embodied carbon emissions;
• Widely applicable to a range of new applications on a range of surfaces including windows, roofs or cladding of buildings;
• Applicable to valuable niche applications not possible with conventional cells, including flexible battery chargers for consumer electronics.

Dr Mark Williamson, Director of Innovations at the Carbon Trust, said:
“This technology could provide businesses and individuals with an opportunity to generate their own low-cost renewable energy on site and empower then to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint in a practical and cost effective way.”