Airtricity is the renewable energy division of Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) will enter a 50:50 joint venture with Aquamarine to develop sites in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

The goal is to develop locations suitable for deploying Aquamarine’s wave and tidal technologies, including the Oyster wave energy converter and the Neptune tidal device.

Work on the first two sites is already underway, with plans to roll out further sites over the next three years.

“This is the next logical step to provide a route to market for its promising Oyster and Neptune technologies,” says Airtricity’s director of marine development Stephen Wheeler. “The agreement gives Airtricity a first option on sites Aquamarine develop, using their know-how and technology to identify and develop environmentally sensitive and profitable sites for the future

“This contract is the biggest deal in the history of marine energy,” says Aquamarine chief executive Martin MacAdam. “Fully consented offshore wind farm sites are selling to owner operators at anywhere between £150,000 and £400,000 per MW consented, giving a strong indication of the large potential value of this deal if all 1,000MW of sites receive full consents and grid connection.”

To bolster its technology development programme, Aquamarine is developing a suite of tools that will be use to identify and evaluate marine energy sites across the world. Using its in-house model of tidal and wave power resources around the coasts of UK and Ireland, the company has pinpointed several gigawatts (GW) of promising locations.

Aquamarine is currently pursuing a similar contract for developments in Southern Europe.