www.waterpowermagazine.com
17 July 2009
The Wave Hub project in England has been approved by the South West Regional Development Agency (RDA), which said the marine energy potential of the area has led to its designation as the UK's first Low Carbon Economic Area.
The UK Government is contributing £9.5M (US$15.5M) to the Wave Hub project. South West RDA is contributing £12.5M (US$20.4M) to the project and a further £20M (US$32.6M) is coming from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Wave Hub will have 20MW capacity and be scalable to 50MW. Ocean Power Technologies Ltd (OPT) is to take the first berth on the Hub with its PowerBuoy wave energy converter.
The hub assembly and 26.5km of cable is to be manufactured by JDR Cable Systems Ltd, of Hartlepool. The contract value is £7.6M (US$12.4M) The Government will give a further £10M (US$16.3M) to back other marine energy projects in the region. South West RDA is leading a £100M (US$163M), two-year investment programme in marine energy.
Earlier this year E.ON and partner Ocean Prospect withdrew from the Wave Hub scheme as they wanted to focus on further technological development of the Pelamis device, in Orkney.
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