Sea change for tidal power

Published on Thursday 19 August 2010 16:55

The marine sector can rejuvenate Scotland's manufacturing industry - but it needs the right skills and investment, finds Nathalie Thomas in Oslo

TWENTY minutes from the centre of Oslo, the offices of Statoil, Norway's state-owned oil company, look like something out of the Tom Cruise film Minority Report.

After signing in at futuristic computer portals, visitors are escorted to the glossy staff restaurant where smiling, well-heeled employees enjoy a relaxed lunch surrounded by designer gas fires and Pop Art.

It's a far cry from traditional stereotypes of the energy industry, with staff at Statoil more likely to be seen in designer outfits than dirty overalls.

But then given that within the Norwegian firm's walls last week, renewable energy specialists from Scotland and Norway were plotting a super-clean future for energy generation through the harnessing of tidal power, it is perhaps not so surprising the clichs don't apply here.

First Minister Alex Salmond joined Keith Anderson of ScottishPower Renewables at Statoil's Oslo office for an announcement that is expected to herald a new dawn for Scotland's depleted manufacturing industry.

Thousands of jobs have been pledged from the so-called 'green revolution' but experts are already warning that Scotland may not have the skills, or the billions of pounds in investment, to turn the promises into reality.

ScottishPower Renewables has climbed into bed with Statoil to further develop what they claim is the world's "most advanced" tidal power machine, which was invented by two engineers in the little-known village of Hammerfest in the far north of Norway.

The device, which stands at 70ft tall, is capable of generating one megawatt of electricity - enough to power 1,000 homes.

Although it has been successfully tested on a fjord near Hammerfest for the past six years, both companies, which each own a stake of about 17 per cent in the device's owner, Hammerfest Strom, are keen to exploit its potential by installing further models in waters deemed to have more commercial firepower.

By next year a prototype is expected to have been delivered to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. Two years later, ScottishPower Renewables hopes to make Islay the first island in the world to be almost entirely run on tidal energy when it installs ten Hammerfest devices in its waters.

However, renewable energy experts say the real test will be when the energy firm places 100 of the huge machines in the Pentland Firth - a project for which it has already been granted a licence from the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed.Not only will the Pentland Firth project produce enough electricity, in theory, to power 100,000 homes, but it is also expected to create 1,000 high-skilled manufacturing and engineering jobs for Scotland.

Hammerfest Strom last week announced an initial 4 million contract to construct the prototype bound for EMEC.

Fife-headquartered Burntisland Fabrication (BiFab) will receive more than 2m to build the main structure of the device, which resembles an underwater turbine atop a tripod.

Another Scots manufacturer is expected to be announced shortly as the winner of a contract to build the machine's 'nacelle', which houses all of the mechanical equipment, including the gears.

According to Hammerfest Strom's chief executive, Stein Andersen, each tidal device ordered will create between five and 10 jobs.

With Scottish yards well placed to win a large proportion of the work, the government has high hopes that both tidal and other forms of offshore energy will breathe new life into Scotland's manufacturing and engineering industries, which have been in decline since the Thatcher era. Even for BiFab, the future of one its yards in Stornoway was under threat until the Hammerfest contract came to its rescue.

After a lack of financial incentives and protracted planning decisions caused Scotland to lose out to countries such as Germany and Denmark on wind turbine manufacturing contracts, renewable energy experts hope that this time the government and enterprise agencies are on the ball.

The marine sector - which encompasses both wave and tidal generation - is still in its relatively early stages but experts say that if Scotland plays its cards right it could develop into a multi-billion-pound industry. It is estimated that Scotland lays claim to as much as a quarter of Europe's tidal and offshore wind energy potential while it could also account for ten per cent of Europe's wave energy generation in future. The Scottish Government hopes that by 2020 as many as 60,000 people will be employed in the offshore energy industry in Scotland, by either renewables companies or suppliers.

While few are willing to pour cold water on Scotland's ambition when it comes to claiming a large portion of the offshore energy industry, skills experts are nevertheless warning that Scotland many not have the expertise to meet the boom in renewables jobs.

According to Tom Hopkinson, of blue collar recruitment firm Taylor Hopkinson Associates, there is a danger that many of the jobs will have to be filled by foreigners unless more specialised training and further education courses are established in Scotland.

"We cannot find experienced people for renewables clients in the UK," says Hopkinson. "We have to bring people in from Denmark, Germany, Spain, France and even as far away as Croatia."

Although Scotland has a wealth of engineers in the oil and gas industry, whose skills could easily be updated for the renewables sector, Hopkinson says few companies are willing to do the training themselves. Equally, he continues, there are not enough higher education courses which would allow oil workers to gain the additional qualifications themselves.

He fears Scotland is heading towards a major skills crisis in the sector unless more universities and higher education colleges are encouraged to offer relevant courses. More guidance should be given in schools about careers in the renewables sector, he adds, as not enough students are choosing relevant subjects such as science, technology or maths.

"There's a huge employment opportunity in offshore wind and tidal in the UK but there needs to be more training made available for people."

Some Scottish universities have begun to latch on to the requirements of the renewables sector - Heriot-Watt University will next month send some of its fourth-year engineering students to wave and tidal firms in Dumfries and the Shetlands to carry hour 150 hours' worth of work experience - but experts say courses remain few and far between.

Investment in the sector could prove even more problematic. While firms such as Hammerfest Strom argue that Scotland currently offers the best financial incentives to test and manufacture prototypes, there are concerns over how the much larger projects will be connected to the National Grid.

Although the approval of the Beauly to Denny power line earlier this year marked a major move forward in equipping Scotland with the right infrastructure for the offshore boom, a costly subsea network will also be required. It has been estimated that Scotland will need to find up to 4 billion annually in order to install the necessary infrastructure to turn Scotland from an attractive place to test devices into a full-scale renewable energy generator.

With public sector budgets under strain, Salmond admitted to Scotland on Sunday that the lion's share of this sum will have to be found through private sector investment.

"I wouldn't claim that everything is in place," the First Minister said. "Much of what is required for this first generation (of prototype projects] is already in place and we are actively seeking agreement for the large offshore investments that will be required for the next generation (such as the Pentland Firth projects]."

The Scottish Low Carbon Investment conference, which will be held in Edinburgh next month, will attempt to persuade international energy companies that Scotland's waters offer the same investment potential as the oilfields of Nigeria or the deep-water Gulf of Mexico several years ago.Ron Hewitt, chief executive of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, which is organising the conference, admits that Scotland faces stiff competition but he insists those who take a leap of faith will be rewarded - just as companies were in the 1970s and 1980s with North Sea oil.

"If this thing is going to realise its potential, it needs major, major investment, and by that we mean international investment," Hewitt says. "But those who get in there early will be the people who pick up the dividends later."