Engineering consultancy Frazer-Nash has won a commission to help support the Marine Farm Accelerator (MFA) − an Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult programme which is being delivered in collaboration with the Carbon Trust.

With commercial-scale marine energy farms close to deployment in UK waters, Frazer-Nash will work with the Carbon Trust on its Marine Farm Accelerator programme - an Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult scheme which seeks to accelerate deployment of marine farm projects.

Neil Adams, Group Leader at Frazer-Nash, explained:

"Frazer-Nash has been appointed to give a clear overview of the approaches used for energy yield and uncertainty assessment across the wave and tidal energy industry and the relative pros and cons of each. This will be a major step forward in standardising the approaches taken across the industry."

"It builds on our previous experience of performing energy yield predictions and uncertainty estimation for marine schemes. Our work will help developers and investors involved in accelerating the commercialisation of marine energy."

The development of best practice guidance for wave and tidal energy yield uncertainty assessments will deliver substantial benefits for the industry, including:

• For the MFA's key stakeholders, it will, as one element of other focus areas, help identify aspects of the process with the greatest uncertainties and enable them to direct their efforts where they can provide maximum benefit for the industry.
• For investors, it will enable them to compare potential projects on a like-for-like basis, helping them to decide where and how to invest their capital.
• For project developers, it will increase their understanding of the risks associated with projects and present them in a transparent way, which in turn will help attract investment.

In December the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult published a report calling for urgent action to bolster the UK’s wave and tidal industries and get investors back in play.

The report said that that the strategically important market could be worth around £76bn to the UK economy, cumulatively by 2050. However, funding for first arrays and technology proving had become less certain as investors had been either unwilling to invest, or been pulling out of the market due to lack of clarity on future investment return and timing.