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Abstract
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The world is currently moving towards renewable energy sources. This growth is driven by policy and renewable energy targets such as the European Union (EU) Renewables directive which aims to have 20% of the EU energy needs met by renewable energy by 2020. Two of these sources, wind and tidal, employ turbines to extract energy from the environment. Tidal or marine energy is very promising as it provides predictable energy and the UK has an estimated 50% of Europe’s tidal energy resource1. However, it is currently in its infancy and the UK only has 9MW installed capacity. The wind energy industry is more mature, and continues to grow despite the economic climate. In the year 2000 there was 17.4GW of installed capacity worldwide. This grew by an average of 27% each year until 238GW was installed by 2011. As capacity increases the percentage of growth is likely to fall. Between 2011 and 2012 growth slowed to 19% with total installed capacity reaching 283GW. However, approximately 13GW was installed during this time in both the US and China (the two largest renewable energy markets) and almost 45GW worldwide.
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