Firms make waves with renewable energy cash

TWO Edinburgh companies were today among half a dozen awarded funding to spearhead the UK's marine energy drive.

Aquamarine Power and Pelamis Wave Power will share in 22 million of financial support for the six most promising technologies from across the country.

The Carbon Trust said the cash would speed up the deployment at sea of full-scale prototypes of the companies' leading designs, enabling the mass scale deployment of marine energy and leading to the advent of an important new commercial UK industry by 2020.

Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, said: "The UK must urgently diversify, de-carbonise and secure its energy sources, and marine energy could over time provide up to 20 per cent of the UK's electricity. Generating electricity from the UK's powerful wave and tidal resource – much of which is found off Scotland's shores – not only plays a crucial role in meeting our climate change targets but also presents a significant economic opportunity for the UK."