Expert: The advantage of ocean energy is predictable

Dr. Allen Irwin is currently the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice Recognition at Robert Gordon University in Scotland. As a Chartered Engineer and Energy Chartered Engineer, his research focuses on the challenges of engineering and tidal energy resource assessment and utilization.

Alan Owen

China Energy News: Scotland attaches great importance to the development of ocean energy. Can you explain to us the potential of Scotland in ocean energy and tidal energy?

Alan Owen: Scotland has rich reserves in terms of tidal energy and wave energy. The sea waters in the Atlantic Ocean and other sea areas around Scotland collide with the Scottish coastline, making Scotland particularly rich in tides. The wind over the Atlantic Ocean caused the waves to strike the coast of Scotland's northwest long distance and forcefully. If offshore wind energy is also taken into account, Scotland’s coastline accounts for more than 20% of Europe’s ocean energy. When discussing a resource, it is important to understand how this resource is described. When it comes to ocean energy, raw resources refer to energy contained in ocean currents or waves. Technical resources refer to resources that can be extracted using current technologies, while economic resources refer to resources that are economically available. The main advantage of tidal energy is predictability, and wave energy also has this characteristic to a certain extent.

China Energy News: Scotland hopes to become the world leader in ocean energy development. Can you talk about Scotland's achievements in the use of tidal energy and wave energy?

Alan Irwin: Most of the world's proven technologies for the use of ocean energy originated in Scotland. Scotland has a long history in engineering technology and currently enjoys a world-leading position in the manufacture of marine energy engineering. From Glasgow's shipbuilding industry to Aberdeen's complex underwater engineering operations, Scotland leads the world in marine energy projects. Scotland established the Saltire Prize for international awards in marine energy innovation for a total of £10 million in prize money. This award became the single largest prize in the history of the world's largest prize. This award is a powerful force for accelerating the development of marine renewable energy.

China Energy News: As far as I know, the cost of developing wave energy and tide energy is very high. I would like to know what subsidies the Scottish government gives to these two types of energy development.

Alan Irwin: The Scottish government's subsidies for tidal energy and wave energy are often in the form of a feed-in tariff (FIT). For example, the on-grid price subsidy that Chaoshan can get is 5:1, which means that every time a company sends out and sends 1 kilowatt of electricity to the grid, it can get the current price of 5 kilowatts. How much of the on-grid tariff subsidy varies depending on the technology used by the power generation company.

China Energy News: How can development of tidal energy and wave energy have adverse effects on marine life? How can we balance the relationship between ocean energy development and marine environmental protection?

Alan Irwin: I recently completed a project report in this area. In fact, we cannot fully understand the impact of the development of Chaoshan on the environment. What we have learned is that the development of tidal energy will have a direct and indirect impact on the ecosystem. The direct influence is that it will change the foraging behavior from seabirds to sea animals. The indirect effect is that marine mixing affects the entire food chain, and tidal mixing ultimately affects the primary production of marine life. Therefore, when developing tidal energy, it is necessary to determine the foraging range of marine carnivorous animals, which is crucial for the development of ocean energy ecology and environmental protection.

China Energy News: In addition to cost and environmental concerns, what challenges does Scotland face in developing ocean energy?

Alan Irwin: Nowadays, the development of marine energy in Scotland is still faced with many problems, such as insufficient support for power transmission systems, problems with installation technology and stable cost-effectiveness, shortage of installation vessels, and poor interactivity of resources and equipment.