Waveplam

The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), based at Stromness in Orkney, was established in 2003 as a test centre for both wave and tidal energy devices. It was established primarily as an operational facility, and consequently it was not financed for research or for the development of monitoring techniques.

The licensing of devices for deployment has highlighted the urgency of the need for these industries to be able to address the many unknown potential environmental impacts of wave and tidal devices. EMEC has been successful in raising some funding over the last 4 years: some has been provided by its original funders, and some by external sources (eg SNH, nPower).

To see details of individual project undertaken by EMEC visit the EMEC website, at http://www.emec.org.uk, specifically the following:

http://www.emec.org.uk/tidal_site_projects.asp
http://www.emec.org.uk/wave_site_projects.asp
http://www.emec.org.uk/site_wide_projects.asp
http://www.emec.org.uk/national_standards.asp

The most recently funded projects include land-based wildlife observations by (a)observer, and (b)using a camera. According to EMEC's website the "Billia Croo Wildlife Observations project has been jointly funded by SNH and nPower to assess the potential for wave energy devices operating in situ to cause disturbance or displacement to wildlife species whose normal habitats/breeding areas occur in the vicinity of sites of deployment of such devices".

The high resolution camera is now established at a high point overlooking the EMEC wave test site at Billia Croo on Mainland Orkney.

Also funded is a project that combines EMEC's experience with ADPC deployment and retrieval, with the long-standing expertise of Orkney College (www.orkney.uhi.ac.uk), which runs a number of relevant courses on Health and Safety at sea, navigational safety, and boat handling techniques. The 5-day repeatable course, developed by Orkney College and EMEC, will be offered by Orkney College. This project has been funded by nPower and will provide a suitable methodology for the safe and accurate deployment of ADCP measuring devices in strong tidal currents.

A past project, the 'Drifting Ears', funded by Highlands and Islands Enterpise, saw the development of a methodology for the characterisation of the acoustic properties of the EMEC tidal test site. This method was developed for EMEC by SAMS.

EMEC hopes to gain funding for the development of an acoustic method of characterisation for its wave site, which will potentially provide the wave industry with an equivalent to that developed for the tidal site. EMEC is keen to work with the Wave Energy Centre in progressing a consistent method that will serve future wave deployment sites.

http://www.emec.org.uk