The Carbon Trust is a leading independent authority on marine energy. Since launching the Marine Energy Challenge in 2003 we have worked to understand the barriers facing the industry as it moves towards commercialisation and worked with innovative companies to overcome and remove these barriers. The focus of our work has been to reduce the cost of energy from wave and tidal energy.
Carbon Trust has managed a number of programmes to help move marine energy towards full scale, commercial deployment:
- Accelerating cost reduction: Marine Energy Accelerator 2007-2010
- Proving the technology: Marine Renewables Proving Fund 2009-2011
The Marine Renewables Proving Fund provided financial and technical support for full-scale demonstration of promising wave and tidal devices. - Demonstrating at scale: Marine Renewables Commercialisation Fund 2012-2015
We administered the Scottish Government's Marine Renewables Commercialisation Fund (MRCF) which provided £18 million of capital support for projects to accelerate the deployment of commercial-scale wave and tidal stream energy arrays in Scottish Waters or support innovative enabling technologies or infrastructure that will de-risk future arrays. - Support for marine array innovation: Marine Farm Accelerator 2013-2016
The Marine Farm Accelerator programme was launched by the Carbon Trust in collaboration with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult centre to accelerate development and proving of essential technology for marine energy first arrays and enable future cost savings. The Marine Farm Accelerator was a joint industry programme, working with industry partners to agree innovation areas, and support research, demonstration and deployment of technologies to reduce risk and cost for early wave and tidal arrays.
The Carbon Trust supported the design, development and delivery of Wave Energy Scotland. Wave Energy Scotland (WES) – funded by the Scottish Government and supported by Innovate UK using the Small Business Research Initiative – takes an innovative approach to supporting the commercialisation of the wave energy sector.
Read more in the press release: Carbon Trust supports Wave Energy Scotland’s first £7 million technology innovation competition.
Carbon Trust has invested in marine energy developers and provided support through our Entrepreneurs Fast Track scheme, building long term relationships with innovators. We were also a founding funder of the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.
Learn more about the industry: see our Accelerating Marine Energy Report (2011).
Marine energy reports and studies
Information in these reports was correct at the time of publication.
We have published a range of background reports and studies on the marine energy sector including:
UK tidal current resource and economics study (pdf)
Our report Accelerating Marine Energy provides our view on how the cost of wave and tidal energy can be brought down by supporting innovation in devices and in the supply chain, and case studies of technologies supported by the Marine Energy Accelerator.
Carbon Trust led the Marine Technology Innovation Needs Assessment for the Low Carbon Innovation Coordination Group, which analyses the commercial potential and key economic benefits to the UK of wave and tidal stream energy.
