Siemens waves through investment in UK tidal energy project

Marine Current Turbines raises a further £4.8m as it moves forward with plans for north Wales tidal energy farm

Plans for the UK's first tidal energy farm moved a step closer to realisation today after engineering giant Siemens confirmed it has joined the latest £4.8m funding round in Marine Current Turbines (MCT).

The latest round follows a previous one involving Bank Invest, Carbon Trust, EDF Energy and High Tide, and takes the sum raised by MCT to £8.5m in the past two months.

Having successfully installed the world's first commercial-scale tidal stream generator in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland last year as part of its SeaGen project, the company is working on plans for a 5MW tidal energy farm off the coast of Anglesey in north Wales.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, MCT managing director Martin Wright said the new equity funding would allow the company to move forward with the project and begin lodging applications for planning consent.

He added that the deal could also pave the way for some form of commercial partnership with Siemens. "At the moment this is an equity deal that will help us move forward with the commercialisation of the technology," he said. "In the back of our minds both we and Siemens are aware that there could be ways that we can work together in the future, but there is no commercial deal as yet."

René Umlauft, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Division of Siemens Energy, similarly hinted that a more comprehensive partnership could develop. " With this investment in an early-stage company we're securing access to an innovative technology in the field of renewables," he said.

Wright said the deal provided evidence of growing investor confidence in the marine energy sector, adding that the company hoped to have its first device in the water off Anglesey during 2012. But he hinted that further support from the government would be required to get commercial-scale devices in the water.

"We are working with RWE on the project, but we need to see suitable encouragement from the government to attract utility players to the sector and that means addressing the differential in support between offshore wind and marine energy," he said.

Currently both marine energy and offshore wind projects receive the same level of support through the government's Renewables Obligation scheme, despite marine installations being significantly more costly. As a result, firms such as MCT have traditionally struggled to attract large-scale renewables investors who have instead focused on offshore wind projects.