WaveRoller Signs $4.4M Demonstration Project in Portugal

MendoCoastCurrent, October 2, 2009
AW-Energy, a Finnish renewable energy company developer of WaveRoller, a patented wave energy technology, has signed a $4.4M (3 million euros) contract with the European Union to demonstrate its technology.
The contract between AW-Energy and the EU is the first one under the “CALL FP7 – Demonstration of the innovative full size systems.” [...]

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Ocean Energy Moving Toward Commercialization

PETER ASMUS, Pike Research, June 17, 2009
The earth is the water planet, so it should come as no great surprise that forms of water power have been one of the world’s most popular “renewable” energy sources. Yet the largest water power source of all – the ocean that covers three-quarters of earth – has [...]

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OPT Reaching Milestones with PowerBuoy in Scotland

EnergyCurrent, June 11, 2009
Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (OPT) has reached two major manufacturing milestones in the development of the company’s PB150 PowerBuoy, a wave energy converter that is to be ready for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Scotland by the end of 2009.
The mechanical elements of the power take-off system of [...]

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Worldwide Investments Increasing in Tidal, Wave and Hydrokinetic Energy

JAMES RICKMAN, Seeking Alpha, June 8, 2009
Oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. As the world’s largest solar collectors, oceans generate thermal energy from the sun. They also produce mechanical energy from the tides and waves. Even though the sun affects all ocean activity, the gravitational pull of the moon primarily drives the [...]

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Scottish Oyster Installing at EMEC

MendoCoastCurrent, March 25, 2009

Aquamarine Power has signed a $2.7 million contract with Fugro Seacore to install their wave energy generator, the Oyster, at the European Marine Energy Center.
Aquamarine’s Oyster converter is designed for waters that are from 26-52 feet deep with anticipated installation 550 yards offshore in the second half of 2009.  The Oyster has [...]

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Portugal’s Wave and Wind Energy Projects Dwindling

PATRICK BLUM, International Herald Tribune, March 15, 2009
LISBON: Projects for wind and wave energy beset by technical snags and dwindling investment
In July, a Pelamis wave power generator, an articulated steel machine like a giant semi-submerged sausage, was towed into the deep Atlantic, off the coast of Aguçadoura in northern Portugal, and attached to a floating mooring.
By [...]

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UK Ocean Energy Quickly Churning Forward

PETER BROWN, EnergyCurrent.com, February 16, 2009
On a Monday morning in May last year, the Atlantic tide set a turbine in motion on the seabed off Orkney, and the energy captured was connected to the national grid. It was, said Jim Mather, Scotland’s Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, a “massive step forward”.
The amount of electricity [...]

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Pelamis P2 Powers On in Orkney

MaritimeJournal.com, February 12, 2009
Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power has won an order from UK renewable energy generator E.On for the next generation Pelamis Wave Energy Converter, known as the P2.
The P2 will be built at the Pelamis Leith Docks facility and trialed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. This is the first time a [...]

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E.On Testing Pelamis Wave Energy Device Off Scotland

MendoCoastCurrent, February 10, 2009
E.On is moving forward to install and test a single wave device to be fully operational in 2010. Based around a single 750kW Pelamis P2 device that is currently being built in Edinburgh, it will be installed and tested at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.  
The first year of technology [...]

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Push for Clean Energy Spurs Tidal Power Globally

Bloomberg via The Economic Times, February 2, 2009
LONDON: Three decades ago, engineer Peter Fraenkel created an underwater turbine to use river power to pump water in Sudan, where he worked for a charity. Civil war and a lack of funding stymied his plans. Now, his modified design generates electricity from tides off Northern Ireland.
“In the [...]

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Great Gabbard Inquiry Launched on Turbine Blade Damage

PHILIPPE NAUGHTON, TimesOnline UK, January 8, 2009
An investigation was under way today into how a 65 ft. blade was mysteriously torn off a wind turbine amid reports of “strange lights” in the sky.
The 300 ft. turbine at Conisholme in Lincolnshire was left wrecked after the incident. Local residents speculate that the damage could have been [...]

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Irish Tidal Turbines Now at Full Power

BBC News, December 18, 2008
A tidal turbine near the mouth of Strangford Lough has begun producing electricity at full capacity for the first time.  The SeaGen system now generates 1.2MW, the highest level of power produced by a tidal stream system anywhere in the world.
The system works like an “underwater windmill” but with rotors driven [...]

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DONG Energy Opens Denmark’s Largest Onshore Wind Farm

MendoCoastCurrent, December 9, 2008
DONG Energy and Wind Estate A/S opened the second stage of Overgård wind farm on December 2, 2008. With the construction of 10 new wind turbines next to 20 existing turbines, Overgård will now be Denmark’s largest onshore wind farm.
The wind farm, situated approx. 25 km northwest of Randers in East Jutland, [...]

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The Energy Ball: Small Wind with Style

I’m loving this design!  LKBlog
MATTHEW MCDERMOTT, Treehugger.com, September 4, 2008
Designed by Swedish company Home Energy, the Energy Ball breaks from most wind turbine design by using a spherical structure. Home Energy says that by using such a design significantly higher aerodynamic efficiency can be achieved, as compared to traditional designs. What’s more the Energy Ball [...]

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Portugal Plugs in Biggest Onshore Wind Farm in Europe

Giles Tremlett, The Guardian UK, December 2, 2008
Europe’s biggest onshore wind farm plugged itself into the grid today to provide enough electricity for up to a million people in northern Portugal.
A total of 120 windmills are dotted across the highlands of the Upper Minho region of Portugal as one of western Europe’s poorer nations continues [...]

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Capturing Ocean Energy

Guardian.co.uk, December 3, 2008
Way back in Napoleonic Paris, a Monsieur Girard had a novel idea about energy: power from the sea. In 1799, Girard obtained a patent for a machine he and his son had designed to mechanically capture the energy in ocean waves. Wave power could be used, they figured, to run pumps and [...]

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Portugal Embraces Wave Energy

SIMON GOMPERTZ, BBC News, September 24, 2008
The beach at Agucadoura, just north of Porto, is where electricity from the world’s first wave farm is being cabled ashore. Five kilometres out to sea a Pelamis wave machine is gently riding the Atlantic swell, generating power for the Portuguese grid.
The wave farm has just been officially launched [...]

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The Danish Poseidon Wave Energy Project

MendoCoastCurrent, October 21, 2008
Denmark’s Floating Power Plant is currently being tested in Danish waters and exploring both wind and wave opportunities in the North Sea.
Poseidon may be one of the most promising wave energy concepts available today. The goal is to become a stable and competitive concept for wave energy, hereby becoming an accepted competitor on the [...]

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Scotland Now Leading Europe’s Wind Energy Industry

Environmental News Service, July 22, 2008
Europe’s largest onshore wind farm, able to generate enough power for 320,000 homes, has been approved by the Scottish government.
Announcing the new wind farm approval ahead of the World Renewable Energy Congress in Glasgow, First Minister Alex Salmond said the 152-turbine Clyde wind farm near Abington in South Lanarkshire is [...]

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Tidal Power Now Online Feeding Irish Grid

CLAIRE BATES, The Daily Mail, July 17, 2008
The first ever commercial electricity powered by the tides has been put on the National Grid, project managers said today.
The £10million SeaGen turbine based in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough generated enough green energy to supply 150 homes in a test. Full-blown production is expected in a few weeks’ [...]

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Gamesa Sees First-half Net Profits Soar

AFP, July 29, 2008
MADRID (AFP) — Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa Energia, a sector leader, said on Tuesday its net profits soared during the first-half at a time when record high oil prices are fueling interest in alternative energy sources.
The company posted a comparable net profit of 93 million euros ($146 million US) during the [...]

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Renewable Energy Centre Applauds Irish & Scottish Feasibility Study

openPR.co.uk, July 23, 2008
Plans announced yesterday for a study into the feasibility of wind and wave farms off the coast of Northern Ireland and Scotland were heralded as a positive step forward by The Renewable Energy Centre
Costing 1.6 million and funded mainly by Inter-Reg, an EU (European Union) funded programme, the study will begin later [...]

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Exeter Scientist Leads Major European Wave Energy Project

Atom.ex.ac.uk, July 21, 2008
As Europe’s largest ocean energy research programme launches, one of its participants speaks of the huge potential for the South West to become a leader in wave energy development.
Professor George Smith of the University of Exeter is a member of EquiMar, a group of 62 scientists from 11 European countries working together [...]

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Iberdrola, Gamesa Creating Strategic Company and Largest Turbine Supply Deal

MendoCoastCurrent, June 13, 2008
Iberdrola Renewables and Gamesa Energia have signed the largest turbine supply contract ever in the wind power industry representing a total capacity of 4,500 megawatts (MW), for delivery between 2010 and 2012. The investment for wind power projects to which the turbines will be assigned is approximately €6.3 billion, a figure that [...]

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Europe’s Wind Farm Crown Slips

FIONA HARVEY & REBECCA BREAM, The Financial Times, February 7, 2008
More than half the world’s new wind farms were built outside Europe last year, the first time this has occurred.
Research by the Global Wind Energy Council showed that, although Europe remains the world’s biggest generator of wind energy, its position is being eroded as growth [...]

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The Waves are Rolling for Wave Star Energy in Denmark

MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2008
Wave Star Energy in scale 1:10 has now been in operation and grid connected since April 2006 at Nissum Bredning in the North Western corner of Denmark.
Since then the company’s test machine has logged almost 4.000 operational hours in the first six months of daily operation, been through seven significant storms and [...]

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