(Issued by Scottish Development International)

World Investment Congress, La Baule, France, June 28-29

Scotland has been selected as a guest of honour at the fifth World Investment Conference to be held in La Baule, France on June 28 - 29, 2007.

The focus of this year's conference is 'Green technologies and services' - highlighting the link between environmental awareness and responsibility, and Europe's capacity and potential to attract and develop green technologies, investments, talent and capital..

Martin Togneri, CEO of Scottish Development International, will be part of an international panel discussing foreign direct investment in Europe in recognition of Scotland's success in attracting foreign investment and the thriving Scottish renewable energy sector.

In 2005/06, Scotland was named as 'UK Region of the Future' by the Financial Times fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) magazine. Scotland came top by scoring highest in the categories of economic performance, human resources, IT and telecommunications, transport links, quality of life and overall FDI promotion strategy.

Over 600 high level leaders in industry, business and politics will gather at La Baule, with the aim of making Europe a more attractive and competitive location for investment on the global stage. The major theme of this year's conference is green technologies and services, with Scotland showcasing its capability in this area.

Martin Togneri commented: "With over 2,000 companies and 100,000 employees in the energy sector, Scotland is committed to developing sustainable and clean energy sources to enhance energy security, reduce the effects of climate change not just for the UK but for the global community, and boost Scotland's economy through export of leading edge technology."

Elaine Hanton, head of renewables with Highlands and Islands Enterprise said: "The renewable energy sector offers the Highlands and Islands substantial economic opportunities. Not only do we benefit from one of the best wind and wave regimes in Europe, we are also investing and building up expertise in manufacturing, supply chain development and world-class research. This is an expanding market worldwide and Scotland has a great deal to offer."

Scotland's strength in renewable energy is demonstrable through figures which show that it reached its 2010 target of 18 per cent of Scotland's electricity demand from renewable energy three years early in spite of this target being 8 per cent higher than that for the UK as a whole. France has set a target of 21 per cent of electricity generated from renewable energy by 2010, whilst there is a European target to generate 20 per cent of primary energy consumption from renewables by 2020. Scotland has set the pace in Europe with an ambitious target of 40 per cent of electricity generated from renewable resources by 2020.

Scotland is estimated to have up to 60GW of renewable capacity - a quarter of the European wind resource total - and will deliver almost 65 per cent of the current and future developments in onshore wind for the UK. The Beatrice project, with the biggest and deepest offshore wind turbine in the world, is helping establish Scotland as a global leader in the development of deepwater offshore wind technology. With the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) - the only full scale, grid connected wave and tidal test facility in the world; Ocean Power Delivery's first grid connected deep water wave system, Pelamis; and Wavegen, with the world's first grid connected wave machine, Scotland is also the global leader in the development of wave and tidal energy. The newly introduced Marine Supply Obligation is an innovative government scheme that creates incentives and which will reward the generation of renewable energy from wave and tidal devices, helping Scotland to build on its position of technical excellence.

Scotland's delegation at La Baule includes leading companies and institutes involved in its renewable energy industry representing projects at the cutting edge of wind, wave and tidal power. These include:

European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Not content with being the first grid connected wave test centre in the world, EMEC will shortly add 5 grid connected tidal berths to its existing 4 wave berths. Already Irish company, OpenHydro, has deployed its full scale tidal turbine at the new site and has been awarded £1.2m by the Scottish Executive, under the Wave and Tidal Energy Support Scheme, to add a further turbine with a grid connection - the first such device in the UK. OpenHydro's unique Open Centre Turbine design has already won them contracts in Nova Scotia, Canada and on the Channel Island of Aldernay.

Ocean Power Delivery (OPD) Ocean Power Delivery will also benefit from the Scottish Executive's Wave and Tidal Energy Support Scheme. ScottishPower, will use £4.2 million in grant to support the deployment of four of OPD's Pelamis Wave Energy Converters at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. When connected in 2008, this will be the largest wave farm in the world and represent the company's second major commercial sale for the Pelamis wave energy system.

Talisman Energy Aberdeen based oil and gas developer Talisman Energy, along with partner Scottish and Southern Energy, was responsible for the Beatrice Offshore Wind Project which has resulted in the deployment of the largest offshore wind turbine in the world in Scottish waters. The project received £3 million in grant support from the Scottish Executive. The 5MW machine from German company REpower was commissioned in May this year and will be joined by its twin machine in July 2007. Scottish companies built the subsea jacket structure which enables the turbines to sit in 45m of water and the special support system along with the towers for the project. This is the deepest water depth that a wind turbine has yet been placed in and is the first use of this type of oil and gas jacket technology in the wind industry.

Scotrenewables Ltd This Orkney company has come up with a successful design for a floating twin turbine tidal stream device which will be deployed at EMEC in 2008. Scotrenewables' unique design has already attracted the attention and investment money of French oil and gas giant Total. Scotrenewables was another successful applicant to the Scottish Executive's Wave and Tidal Energy Support Scheme

Lunar Energy Glasgow based company Lunar Energy will be building its first full-scale Rotec Tidal Turbine this year for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre in 2008. Designed by Aberdeen company Rotec Engineering, the 1MW RTT device will be the largest stand alone tidal device in the world. Lunar have also recently announced a partnership with E.On UK to develop an 8MW tidal stream RTT array off of the West Coast of the UK which it aims to have in place by 2010.

Institute of Energy Systems (IES) Based at the University of Edinburgh IES is responsible for the leadership of the UK's Sustainable Power Generation and Supply (SuperGen) Marine project. The aims of SuperGen are: to increase knowledge and understanding of the extraction of energy from the sea; to reduce uncertainties for future stakeholders in the development and deployment of the technology and to enable progression of new marine energy concepts and devices into their true position in a future energy portfolio.