Scottish Parliament Renewable Energy Policy Recommendations Case Study - Frazer-Nash Consultancy

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Scottish Parliament Renewable Energy Policy Recommendations

Background

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) commissioned Frazer-Nash to produce a thought leadership report on the marine energy enterprise in Scotland. This report was then used as the centre-piece of a parliamentary briefing at Holyrood.

Solution

We developed the objectives for the report to ensure that it would provide a valuable contribution to the development of marine energy. These were:

Overview the energy challenge and the political response to this at EU, UK and Scottish Government level
Overview the marine energy enterprise in Scotland
Identify public funding allocated to developing the marine energy enterprise
Undertake stakeholder consultation on barriers to commercialisation, the effectiveness of policy & public funding and enterprise requirements of the education system
Synthesise the research into impartial policy-making recommendations for the Scottish Government.

Our approach involved combining research on the current state of the marine energy enterprise in Scotland with consultation with key players from industry and government. The report gave 3 main recommendations:

Formation of a £40M fund to ensure that a sufficient range of well-engineered wave and tidal energy technology is tested in the ocean environment. Design the fund to pull in Scotland’s subsea and marine engineering expertise from the oil & gas sector.
Maintain momentum through strong, courageous and consistent political leadership.
Work with Westminster to find grid infrastructure solutions that will allow marine energy in Scotland to play its part in meeting UK renewable energy targets.

The report is freely available on the IMechE’s website www.imeche.org.

Outcomes

Frazer-Nash presented the report on behalf of the IMechE to MSPs and industry at Holyrood in November 2008. This led to extensive media coverage on the adequacy of funding for marine energy and subsequently Scotland’s opposition party promised to double the size of the £10M Saltire Prize. This prize is for advances in wave and tidal energy and is one of the biggest international innovation prizes in history.