Carmichael welcomes “overdue but necessary” £3m funding support for EMEC

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has welcomed the announcement today of £3m funding for the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) from the UK government, calling the support “overdue but necessary”.

Based in Orkney, EMEC is the world’s first and leading wave and tidal energy testing facility. The UK government has awarded to EMEC a total package of £3M across two years, supporting EMEC’s role in the island economy, future green growth for the UK and its role as a world-leading innovator in renewable energy. Mr Carmichael has previously raised the need for such bridging funding for EMEC with ministers in meetings and publicly in the House of Commons.

Responding to the news, Mr Carmichael said:

“This funding for EMEC is long overdue but necessary and welcome. Having pressed the case publicly and privately with ministers for some time I am glad we are now over the line. Top credit has to go to the team at EMEC themselves as they have doggedly pursued the matter until the government delivered what was needed.

“We have to be clear that while these funds are important, they are still not the full amount that is needed to unlock tidal stream energy potential. There is far more that we can and must do.

“The government needs to continue to play its part in maintaining EMEC’s leading role in tidal stream innovation. Their success is the success of the wider renewables sector and the country as a whole and I shall continue making that case to ministers.”