An introduction to the UK marine renewable atlas

The UK marine renewable atlas is a new information resource designed to assist government strategic planning for large-scale offshore renewable energy development. The atlas provides a means to identify, quantify and spatially map the potential interest areas for wave, tidal and offshore wind resources at a regional scale across the limits of the UK continental shelf. The assembled database and technical reports generated by the study are publicly available, and have received great interest from potential developers, stakeholders and the general public. The project has been funded by the Department of Trade and Industry’s strategic environmental assessment combined programme covering oil and gas and marine renewable agendas.