Renewable energy consultancy PMSS has been appointed by the South West Regional Development Agency (RDA) to lead a 100,000 pounds (US$150,600) study into the potential of marine energy hydro and other renewables around the coast of South West England.

A leading marine energy hydropower test center for wave and tidal energy technologies is expanding its workforce to meet the growing demands of companies developing devices that harness energy from the sea.

Construction has begun off Oregon's coast on a commercial U.S. wave energy farm, which is being developed by Ocean Power Technologies and is planned to supply power to about 400 homes, according to national media reports.

Renewable energy company Hydro Alternative Energy announced that it recently conducted initial in-water, off-shore testing of its patent pending turbine prototype designed for use in planned commercialized tidal water power applications.

Scotland-based Hydro Group has been awarded a contract worth 500,000 pounds (US$780,518) in a deal that will see the provider of optical and electrical subsea products collaborating on the UK’s Wave Hub project.

The U.K.'s Carbon Trust announced 22 million pounds (US$34.5 million) of new funding for the six most promising wave and tidal power technologies, seeking to speed up deployment of full-scale prototypes and accelerate the first commercial projects in the U.K.

Hydro Alternative Energy Inc., a renewable energy company, recently acquired all U.S. and international patent and intellectual property rights to certain water power technology for use in certain commercialized water power applications.

If ocean energy trial projects are successful in the next few years, the industry could represent a large source of renewable electricity, reaching up to 200 GW of installed generation capacity by 2025, according to a report by Pike Research.

The first and only direct fish survival study performed on a hydrokinetic turbine shows that the technology is exceedingly safe for fish.

British tidal energy company Marine Current Turbines (MCT) has raised 3.5 million pounds (US$5.6 million) from an investor group led by Carbon Trust Investments Limited to help it deploy a commercial tidal energy farm in UK waters, Carbon Trust reported.

Vattenfall has announced plans for a joint venture with Pelamis Wave Power to develop a marine energy farm near the Shetland Islands in the eastern Atlantic .

Hydro Alternative Energy Inc. (HAE) has acquired Water Power Technologies LLC (WPT), giving it the licensing rights to patent-pending technology.

Proponents of wave and tidal power have compared the state of this area of the renewable energy sector with the early days of wind power. The technology has great potential but still must prove itself before it can be widely deployed.

Atlantis Resources Corp. has selected the waters off Scotland’s Orkney Islands as the proving ground for the world’s biggest tidal turbine.

Hydro Green Energy LLC won honorable mention in the renewable/sustainable category of Power Engineering magazine’s annual Projects of the Year Awards.