Billia Croo wave energy test site

EMEC is the world’s leading test site for demonstrating wave and tidal energy technologies at sea with more technologies tested at its sites in Orkney than anywhere else in the world.

EMEC’s grid-connected wave test site was constructed in 2003, and is ideally placed on the western edge of the Orkney mainland, at Billia Croo outside Stromness. Subjected to the powerful forces of the North Atlantic Ocean, it is an area with one of the highest wave energy potentials in Europe with an average significant wave height of 2–3 metres, but reaching extremes of up to 18m.