David Ross
Tiny single cell organisms found in fresh and salt water, hold the key to a
pioneering project, which could bring new industry to some of the most
fragile and remote communities in the land,
The microalgae can be used to produce a wide range of useful products
ranging from pharmaceuticals to feedstuffs for the fish farming industry,
but are currently flown into Scotland from around the world.
Now a £2m project has begun in Oban developing a system to produce the
microalgae over the next year. If successful the second year of the project
will see it move to the Ardnamurchan Estate, near Acharacle, where a large
scale production plant will be built.
It will powered by green energy. The estate already has wind, hydro,
biomass and wave generators on site.
This will be the largest algal production facility in the UK, designed to
help unlock the potential of locally owned renewable energy to transform
the prospects of communities and industry in peripheral areas.
The ASLEE project (Algal Solutions for Local Energy Economy) project is led
by Oban -based systems design and manufacturing company Xanthella Ltd and
its partners, who include the University of the West of Scotland and the
University of Stirling’s Marine Environment Research Laboratory at
Machrihanish.
It has been awarded £500,000 from the Scottish Government’s Local Energy
Challenge Fund to fund the first year of feasibility studies.
The process is said to be ideal for matching with intermittent renewable
energy generation, using the energy at times when it is abundant and cheap,
and providing a valuable grid balancing service at the same time.
Project Leader Dr Douglas McKenzie, CEO at Xanthella, said: “We are
delighted that our project has been chosen by the Local Energy Challenge
Fund to test out what is an exciting and hugely innovative venture for us
in Scotland. Scotland has massive potential for expanding its use of
renewable energy but problems with our electrical grid structure mean that
much of this potential cannot be used. If we had new uses for the
electricity near where the renewable electricity is produced then we could
remove this constraint.
“Microalgae are a hugely versatile industrial product. We already use them
in local aquaculture but actually fly them in from Japan and the USA rather
than manufacture them locally. This project has the potential to allow us
to develop renewable production in our remote and rural areas much faster
than we are currently doing and to make algal production much cheaper. All
of this means more jobs and a better economy for some of the most remote
and vulnerable areas in Scotland.”
Other partners are ALIenergy, VCharge, FAI Aquaculture, SgurrEnergy, the
Ardnamurchan Estate and Woodland Renewables.
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