The South West will receive £10.3 million of development funding to research marine renewable energy, giving a huge boost to plans for a ‘wave hub’ 10 miles off the Cornish coast.
The money will be invested in the Peninsula Research Institute for Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE) by the European Regional Development Fund, the Convergence Programme in Cornwall, the ERDF Competiveness Programme in the South Wes, the South West Regional Development Agency (RDA) and the universities of Exeter and Plymouth, and will finance the work of 15 academic staff and 60 researchers. It will also pay for new equipment, including wave and tidal measuring devices, wave-making and under-sea electrical equipment, and collision-avoidance and monitoring technology.
Research is expected to focus on the South West RDA’s planned wave hub, which the organisation claims will be the world’s largest wave farm when it starts operation next year.
Stephen Peacock, Enterprise and Innovation Director at the South West RDA, said this was a major step towards putting the South West at the forefront of clean energy research and production, and achieving the region’s aim of investing £70 million in low-carbon activities by 2012. He added: “We want our region to be one of the best places in the world to build a low-carbon business and a global leader in the development of environmental and renewable energy technologies.”
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