Chairman’s opening

Michael Starling, Principal Consultant, BMT Cordah

The way forward for tidal stream

• Discover how offshore wind developers successfully took technology to the open sea, the lessons they learnt and where your business can adopt best practice
• Develop key relationships with people with hands-on offshore experience and identify the skill sets required to drive down your project costs
• Transform your activity into a commercially viable project which is competitive, productive and profitable
• Hear how a project developer took wind energy to the forefront of renewable technology and implement their critical success factors to your project
• Learn how to spot opportunities within your programme and how to amend these swiftly without compromising your development

Latest tidal research and the impact it has on your development

• Find out the true potential of energy that can be exploited from the seas and take away steps that will enable you to fully exploit this
• Is current thinking wrong? Examine the best positioning for tidal devices so you achieve maximum output and hear why conventional thinking could be wrong!
• Investigate assumptions about fluid flow in the vicinity of turbines - learn why these might need to be reconsidered and why this impacts existing commercial software
• Discover the magnitude of scaling and turbulence on your development and identify steps to minimize disruption to your project
• Gauge if you are making the right decisions about how to spend your funding money and take away expert advice which will ensure you make the right - everytime

Ian Bryden, Professor of Renewable Energy, Edinburgh University

Session Title: Financing Tidal Projects

Financing the future of wave and tidal

• Recognise the different availability of funding at each  stage from R&D through to commercial plants and plan your finances accordingly
• Understand what banks require to ensure you successfully gain funding in order to scale up your tidal projects
• Maintenance and Regulation - learn the key to maintaining the confidence of your investors to foster a positive long term partnership

Stephen Jennings, Director, Structured Project Finance – Renewable Energy, Barclays Bank Plc

Insight from BERR and what this means to you

• Find out the governments expectations for the potential of tidal energy within the UK and why you have significant role to play
• Hear the latest UK government policy framework, understand how this will be implemented and how this will effect your tidal business
• Gain insight into the future development of tidal energy, the challenges ahead and the support which will be available for you

Gary Shanahan, Assistant Director Marine Renewables, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Panel debate - How to build successful relationships with investors

Finance has persistently been seen as a major challenge to tidal development. Have your chance to question and reveal some of the mysteries as to why investment is not free flowing for the tidal industry.

• Get a clear and full picture of the funding available to tidal entrepreneurs and assess which options are best suited to your business
• Hear why funding is not being awarded and understand the barriers which can often prevent investors from getting involved with an embryonic industry
• Implement the advice you gain to form your business plan and make a successful pitch to potential investors

Martin Gibson, Partner, Atlas Venture LLP
Stephen Jennings, Director, Structured Project Finance-Renewable Energy, Barclays

Case Study - Creating and implementing a development strategy

Pulse generation will take you though their development strategy encompassing the scaling, funding and technical advantages to be gained from their approach.

• Learn how they planned to transform a concept to a product in just five years and hear how they negotiated funding, developmental and technical issues

• Discover how DTI technology programme funding (stages 1+2) can be linked to save time and why using VC money at stage 3 is a key funding strategy
• Discover why conceptual development rather than pre-commercial prototype is crucial to managing budget over runs, testing and planning issues effectively

Marc Paish, Technical Director, Pulse Generation

Session Title: Route Map to Deployment and Beyond

Your route map for marine renewable site development

• How to select an optimum site for deployment to ensure your time at sea maximises your projects potential and makes you stand out from the crowd
• Hear an overview of how to identify, assess and develop promising tidal sites to ensure your devices are well positioned for long term success
• Expert steps to produce a generic program plan and implement this into your development strategy immediately

Jamie Grimwade, Technology Specialist - Marine Renewables, NaREC

Dipping your toes! Getting into the water

• Understand innovative methods to attach your device to the sea floor including piles, foundations and self inflating structured to ensure you harness the full energy of tides and increase your ROI
• Take away sound advice on what factors need to be monitored whilst you are at sea to ensure you remain productive and keep your licence
• Learn from professionals in associated industries how they have overcome the challenges of maintenance and operations offshore and now operate in a competitive and profitable industry
• Examine the CDM 2007 regulations and think about how this could this could alter your development strategy

Captain Peter Hodgetts, Director, SeaRoc

Connecting tidal development to the network

• Find out who is willing to work with tidal energy, how they aim to connect you to the grid and what tidal energy needs to have in place to gain acceptance
• Examine the challenges arising between tidal device designs and grid integration and make informed decisions regarding  your device development
• Hear from experts who specialise in connecting renewable devices and learn what will make it easier for your device to get connected
• Discover the potential economic impacts of connecting tidal devices and plan your budget accordingly

James Hunt, Managing Director, Econnect

Cost effective offshore operations and maintenance

• Learn how to transform data collected during monitoring into a strategic maintenance and operation plan which won’t compromise productivity
• Discover “Success Based” reliability techniques and make accurate forecasts about performance
• Identify benefits from matching available “weather and tide windows” to ensure a  design which is robust and reliable

Michael Starling, Principal Consultant, BMT Cordah

Chairman’s opening:

John Griffith, Technical Director, EMEC

The role of regions in marine energy development

Examine the UK route map for marine development and understand the role played by regions to ensure this becomes a reality

• Experience gained through offshore oil & gas and shipping has resulted in a highly skilled network of people - understand how these skills can fill the gaps in the supply chain effectively and efficiently
• Technology update: Hear about latest technology and innovation models to keep up to date with industry development  to ensure you retain your competitive edge
• Identify simple steps that can take you from the lab to the sea and put them to work to ensure you avoid costly pitfalls as you deploy

Mark Pearson, Energy and Process Innovation Manager, One NorthEast

Session Title: Developing Tidal Technical

Case Study – Turbine and environmental challenges when creating a full scale tidal turbine

The real test of your device is how it performs out at sea; Seagen was the first tidal device to be launched in 2003, whilst never destined for commercial use the results gained have facilitated subsequent development. Hear how this trial study informed and shaped the approach taken to build a commercial device.

• Understand how your real sea experience will identify  technical problems quickly - and more importantly - strategies to overcome these in order for you to retain your competitive edge
• Understand how a full scale model operates differently to a prototype and discover what engineering modifications are required in order to maintain predicted output
• Unpredictable weather, turbulent seas, high salinity are all factors that can effect your device survival rate - learn tested strategies and prepare your device to withstand these harsh conditions

Martin Wright, Managing Director, Marine Current Turbines

Moving from small scale to full scale

• Identify the engineering and organisational challenges that arise as you scale your prototype to a commercial scale model so that you can plan ahead and avoid resource wastage
• Discover robust performance testing methods which enable accurate predictions on installations and give you – and your investors – an excellent forecasting position
• Learn how to satisfy investor’s requirements in order to maintain a positive business relationship throughout

Andy Baldock, Technical Director - Renewable Energy, Black and Veatch

Panel debate – Techniques to tackle technical challenges and reduce resource wastage

• Expert opinions on the advantages of increasing the scale of your device in stages as you compare and contrast the market success of devices which have gone from prototype to full scale in  both one leap and staged increases
• Find out how to monitor your development and forecast the organisational changes which might be required as you scale your model
• Discuss lessons learnt and costs incurred at each stage of development so you can implement best practice on your return

Michael Starling, Principal Consultant , BMT
Marc Paish, Technical Director, Pulse Generation
Andy Baldock, Technical Director, Black and Veatch
Professor Ian Bryden, Research Director, Supergen Marine Research Consortium, Edinburgh University

Session Title: Gaining a consenting licence

Policies and practicalities for tidal energy

• Identify the specific required environment impact assessments to guarantee yourself a consenting licence
• Learn about the  new policy and political context to ensure your development is not compromised now or in the future
• Utilise experience gained from the wind power debate and learn the pitfalls to avoid and the successful strategies to adopt

Douglas Parr, Chief Scientist, Greenpeace UK

Panel Debate - Regulations are not restrictions

Regulations can often be overlooked from your development strategy resulting in costly consequences due to time delays incurred whilst waiting to gaining your consenting license

• Discover how international standards can act as a platform which allows you to innovate to build a lucrative global export market
• Hear from visionaries who already see the tidal industry as being a global market and learn how they approach market development
• Find out international barriers to development and specific requirements needed in order for you to truly go global
• Identify health and safety barriers and put effective steps into place now in order for you to remain profitable

Amaan Lafayette, Marine Development Manager, E.ON Renewables
John William Griffiths, Technical Director, EMEC
Ann Savage, Marine Consultant, Entec
Dennis Broughton, Communication Manager, IEC

Global Lessons and Future Prospects

• What have your global competitors done so far and what can you learn from them? Gain a global perspective on what has happened with tidal technology to date and learn critical success factors and pitfalls to avoid
• Innovation update: Assess the current status of the wave rotor – a combination tidal and wave energy device
• Implement globally proven techniques for deploying your tidal device successfully

Peter Scheijgrond, Senior Developer, Ecofys

Roundtable Discussion Groups

What are they?

The intention of the roundtables is to have an informal yet structured discussion with your industry peers on topics that are pertinent and relevant to you.

Take the opportunity to share best practice, compare solutions and pose questions to your peers on the issues that matter the most.

It is an excellent opportunity to build long term relationships with industry colleagues who face the same challenges every day.

Topics to be discussed include;

• Practical steps to plan and implement a successful tidal strategy
• Tidal project finance
• Negotiating the technical leap
• Securing consenting licence
• Grid connection
• Identify partnerships which fill the skills gap

Sign up to reserve your place today!