PML part of £1.1 billion project to battle climate change

13th January 2008

 

Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) has been selected as a partner in a £1.1 billion initiative, announced today, that will seek to develop technologies specifically to combat climate change and help meet the UK’s challenging targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

 

The UK’s target for 2050 is an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels covering all sectors of the economy, including shipping and aviation. To help deliver that, 15 per cent of energy should come from renewable sources by 2020.

 

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a unique partnership between global industries and the UK Government, revealed funding for its first four projects, all with the ultimate aim of providing the public with more affordable, low carbon electricity.

 

These, and future projects, have the potential to deliver cheaper renewable electricity from 2020 onwards. The initiative is also geared at making the UK more energy efficient, protecting energy supplies for present and future generations, and improving the country’s skills base.

 

Three of the projects will focus on designing cutting edge offshore wind turbine technology, while the fourth will demonstrate a new commercial scale tidal turbine (Project ReDapt).

 

Project ReDAPT (Reliable Data Acquisition Platform for Tidal) is a UK-based consortium led by Rolls-Royce and including Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Tidal Generation Limited, Garrad Hassan, the University of Edinburgh, EDF Energy, E.ON, and the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). The project aims to install and test a 1MW tidal turbine at the EMEC in Orkney, delivering detailed environmental and performance information never before achieved at this scale in real sea conditions. PML’s contribution concerns the ever present problem of biofouling. Biofouling is the accumulation of living organisms on structures and equipment in contact with water in the marine environment.

 

Dr Annie Linley is co-ordinating PML’s input into the project: “Biofouling from marine algae (seaweeds) and animals such as barnacles will be familiar to boat owners and is well known in the shipping industry where accumulations can cause considerable drag, leading to greater fuel use, increased costs and ultimately even more carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere. The problem may be as serious for wave energy devices and could lead to significant reductions in their efficiency. Our job, in the Project ReDapt, is to look at all possible ways of reducing or managing biofoulants. That might include evaluating the various existing chemical anti-foulants, looking at the novel ways that nature has evolved to deal with the problem, shark and dolphin skins for example, or advising on maintenance regimes once the devices are in the sea. There have been effective methods used in the past, TBT for example, but theseproved to be highly toxicto other marine life and so entirely unsuitable. We will be looking for an efficient, environmentally friendly and cost effective solution.”

 

PML already has considerable expertise in this area and relishes the challenge to work on a broader front with industrial partners: “This an excellent opportunity for PML to apply its scientific knowledge and experience to combat the very real challenges posed by excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, continued Linley. We hope that by helping to develop the UK’s tidal energy sector we can also develop our expertise to become the centre for advice on anti-fouling for the emerging renewables sector. We are especially pleased to be working as part of a team comprised of some of the leaders in the marine renewable energy field.”

 

The funding for the projects comes from the six current private sector partners –BP, Caterpillar, EDF Energy, E.ON, Rolls-Royce and Shell. The ETI’s public funds are received from the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) through the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) with additional funding from the Department for Transport.

 

Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson said: “There is great potential for the UK to harness wind and tidal power to produce renewable energy. These ETI projects will look to turn that potential into reality.

 

“The Government has put record investment into science, including our funding for the ETI. Their work is crucial to achieving a green revolution in Britain and we'll be supporting those growth industries and next-generation technologies where we can have a clear global impact.

 

“This is also science and engineering at its most exciting. It's precisely the kind of challenge we can use to encourage girls and boys to study the STEM subjects at school and then university”.