E.ON has welcomed the news that it has been successful in winning a marine power zone in the Crown Estate's Round 1 scheme.

The company has won a zone around 5km off the west coast of Orkney that it expects will be large enough for a wave power development of up to 50MW.

Dave Rogers, Regional Director of Renewables for E.ON, said: "We're absolutely delighted to have been successful in Round 1and look forward to bringing this exciting project to fruition.

"We're already having a wave power device built for us in Scotland and we intend to take that up to Orkney later this year for testing so things are starting to move in marine power, which has incredible potential in the UK.

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"What's clear is that, by starting with these relatively small test projects, we can learn vital lessons that will allow us, in the future, to develop much larger schemes that can make a real difference to both the UK's power generation and also to the fight against climate change."

E.ON is currently having a Pelamis P2 750kW built at Leith Docks in Edinburgh. The device will be towed up to the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney later this year for testing.

Roger Bright CB, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate said: "I am delighted to announce that E.ON has been awarded the West Orkney South and West Orkney Middle South sites to develop 100MW of wave energy power in Pentland Firth And Orkney Waters, the world's first commercial wave and tidal leasing round.

"The 1.2GW of installed capacity proposed by the wave and tidal energy developers for 2020, shows the world that marine energy can produce meaningful amounts of electricity and offers a real alternative to conventional power production. The long term prospects for this growing industry are exceptionally bright, with vast amounts of untapped energy in the seas all around the UK. It will create new businesses and jobs as well as attracting inward investment."

(CD/GK)