European Marine Energy Centre: facilities and resources

This paper describes the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) wave and tidal test facility, which was established on Orkney Islands, UK, to assist and hasten the development of the wave and tidal stream energy conversion industries. The facilities include infrastructure and a number of soft provisions, or services. After a brief overview of the theory of wave and tidal energy assessment and extraction, the wave and tidal resources available at the EMEC test sites are summarised. The paper also gives an update on the uptake of facilities by developers.