AWS Ocean Energy Receives More Wave Energy Funding

MendoCoastCurrent, July 26, 2010

The Technology Strategy Board funding follows the support given earlier this month to AWS Ocean Energy by the Scottish Government’s WATERS programme (Wave and Tidal Energy: Research, Development and Demonstration Support).

Funding will further develop AWS Ocean Energy’s AWS-III, a ring-shaped multi-cell surface-floating wave power system.

The funding from the Technology Strategy Board is part of a £7m million funding package awarded to 9 wave and tidal stream research and development projects.

Simon Grey, Chief Executive of AWS Ocean Energy, says: “This latest funding is very welcome as we continue to develop our AWS-III wave energy device.

“Our trials on Loch Ness will restart in September for a 6 week period and thereafter a detailed assessment of the trial results will be undertaken before we start building and then deploy a full-scale version of one of the wave absorption cells.”

A single utility-scale AWS-III, measuring around 60 m in diameter, will be capable of generating up to 2.5 MW of continuous power.

AWS Ocean Energy says it is seeking industrial and utility partners to enable the launching of a 12-cell, 2.5 MW pre-commercial demonstrator in 2012 and subsequent commercialisation of the technology.

Read Full Post »

AWS Ocean Energy Testing Wave Energy Technology

BBC News, June 11, 2010

A renewable energy company has gone “back to the future” to develop a device to harness power from waves.

AWS Ocean Energy chief executive Simon Grey said its prototype AWS-III on Loch Ness had evolved from “forgotten” technology first seen in 1985.

He said the device could eventually be used in the Northern Isles.

The technology was also tested on Loch Ness in the 1980s, but the Conservative government of the time suspended the wave energy programme.

Highlands Liberal Democrat MP and chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, has visited the test site.

He said the progress being made by the company was impressive.

Mr Grey said Inverness-based AWS Ocean Energy was exploring the idea of a machine which had rubber rather than steel components.

Further research led to staff uncovering the similar concept from the 1980s.

He said: “We discovered that the work done in 1985 was rated as the most promising by the Department of Energy at the time.

“We have since taken that design and evolved it further so it is more cost effective in terms of producing power.”

EIGHTIES REVISITED

• AWS Ocean Energy is updating technology first tested in 1985
• The Conservatives were also in government at the time
• Government was funding “green” energy projects then as it is today
• The film Back to the Future was released in 1985

Mr Grey said the wave energy programme in the 1980s was fully funded by the UK government but the work was later suspended.

He said: “When interest in wave energy re-emerged people assumed that because it hadn’t happened in the past then those ideas wouldn’t work and they had to find new ideas.”

The chief executive said AWS-III was a re-working of a concept people had “forgotten about”.

The ring-shaped machine on Loch Ness is one tenth of the size of the device that could eventually be generating electricity on a commercial scale.

Full-scale machines could be deployed in the sea around Orkney and Shetland following further tests in 2012.

Investment of £2.3m was secured from the Scottish government to develop the AWS-III.

In 2008, AWS Ocean Energy said it had set its sights on winning the world’s largest prize for marine energy innovation.

It said it planned to double its workforce in 12 months, in part to improve its chances of securing the Scottish government’s Saltire Prize.

Following a visit to the test site on Loch Ness, Mr Alexander said: “Power from our seas can make a significant contribution to our energy security and the future of our environment.”

Read Full Post »

Harnessing Ocean Waves for Power

GAYATHRI VAIDYANATHAN, New York Times, March 2, 2010

Harnessing the ocean waves for emission-free power seems like a tidy concept, but the ocean is anything but tidy. Waves crash from multiple directions on a seemingly random basis, and converting the kinetic energy into electricity is a frontier of alternative energy research that requires grappling with large unknowns.

But with several utility companies and states, and in one case, the U.S. Navy, investing in wave power, or hydrokinetic energy, may not be too far off in the utility mix. At least two companies hope to reach commercial deployments within the next three to five years.

Off the coast of Orkney, Scotland, is the Oyster, a white- and yellow-flapped cylinder, 40 feet tall and firmly locked into the ocean’s bed. With a total of seven moving parts, two of which are pistons, it captures waves as they near the coast. Oyster funnels them into a pipe and carries the power inland to a hydroelectric power generator. The generator has been supplying the United Kingdom’s grid with 315 kilowatts of energy at peak power since October.

A farm of up to 100 Oysters could yield 100 megawatts, according to Aquamarine Power, the Scottish company that developed the technology.

“From an environmental perspective, in the sea you have a very simple machine that uses no oil, no chemicals, no electromagnetic radiation,” said Martin McAdam, CEO of Aquamarine.

The Oyster provides a tiny fraction of the 250 gigawatts of power that the water is capable of providing, including conventional hydroelectric energy by 2030, according to the United Nations. At least 25 gigawatts of that will come from marine renewables, according to Pike Research, a clean technology market research group. The non-conservative estimate is as much as 200 gigawatts. And 2015 will be the benchmark year to determine which of these estimates will be true.

The field of hydrokinetic power has a number of companies such as Aquamarine, all with unique designs and funded by utility companies, government grants and venture capitalists. If at least 50% of these projects come online by 2015, marine power could supply 2.7 gigawatts to the mix, according to Pike Research. A gigawatt is the electrical output of a large nuclear power plant.

‘PowerBuoy’ joins the Marines

There are six marine renewable technologies currently under development that aim to take advantage of ocean waves, tides, rivers, ocean currents, differences in ocean temperatures with depth, and osmosis.

“The energy landscape is going to be a mix of different energy sources, with an increasing proportion coming from renewables,” said Charles Dunleavy, CEO of Ocean Power Technologies, a New Jersey-based research group also developing wave energy. “We aim to be a very big part of this.”

The company has been testing its wave energy device, called the PowerBuoy, in the ocean since 2005. It recently launched another device a mile offshore from the island of Oahu in Hawaii and connected it to the power grid of the U.S. Marine Corps base. It now supplies 40 kilowatts of energy at peak, enough to power about 25 to 30 homes.

“The Navy wants to reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuel; they have a strong need to establish greater energy independence,” said Dunleavy.

The buoy captures the energy from right-sized waves (between 3 and 22 feet tall), which drive a hydraulic pump. The pump converts the motion into electricity in the ocean using a generator embedded into its base. A subsea cable transfers the power to the electrical grid. A buoy farm of 30 acres could yield 10 megawatts of energy, enough to supply 8,000 homes, said Dunleavy.

The structures rise 30 feet above water, and extend 115 feet down. They would not be a problem for commercial trawlers, which are farther offshore, or for ship navigation lanes, said Dunleavy. Recreational boaters, however, may have to watch out.

‘Oyster’ competes with the ‘top end of wind’

In comparison with a system such as the Oyster that brings water ashore to power turbines, creating electricity in the ocean is more efficient, said Dunleavy. “You lose a lot of energy to friction,” he said.

But Aquamarine’s system of having onshore power generation will cut down on maintenance costs, according to McAdam. Operation costs are expected to consume as much as 40% of the budget of operating a marine power plant, according to Pike Research.

Ocean Power is already selling its device for individual commercial use and building larger units of 150 kilowatts off the West Coast of the United States and for the utility company Iberdrola’s unit in Spain.

It is also developing the first wave power station under the Department of Energy’s stimulus program at Reedsport, Ore., according to Dunleavy. The farm, which currently has a 150-kilowatt unit, could grow by nine additional buoys.

And as for price, which is a major concern, Dunleavy said that cost compares with other renewables.

“It is cheaper than solar thermal and photovoltaics, and in the range of biomass,” he said. “It is at the top end of wind.”

The Oyster is also aiming to position itself as an alternative to wind power for utilities. McAdam said that by 2013, his company hopes to be a competitor to offshore wind installations. And by 2015, he hopes to compete with onshore wind.

Read Full Post »

Can Small Wind Power the Electric Cars of the Future?

TAYLOR JOHNSON, SmallWindTips, December 16, 2009

I have been somewhat intrigued by the topic of wind power charging the electric cars of the future as of late. After reading through a number of blogs and different Q&A areas on the internet, I decided to take the question of feasibility into my own hands, so that I can calculate the outcome and offer you the facts.

The first production scale electric vehicle will be the Nissan Leaf, which will hold a charge of up to 24 kilowatt hours. According to Nissan, this 24 kilowatt hour battery can be changed fully in approximately 4-8 hours, and during a quick charge can be 80% charged in only 26 minutes. Wouldn’t that be great, or I guess I should say “won’t that be great” because it is already set for production. It seems that if I were to install a 1.5 kilowatt turbine on my house it should theoretically charge my car over night so it will be ready for me when I head off to work the next day. That’s what I thought too, but the calculations just don’t support it.

Let me first start out by explaining a kilowatt hour and how it differs from the 1.5 kilowatt output of our turbine. So, we have this 1.5 kilowatt turbine on our house, how much power is that really producing? Well, when wind speeds are ideal (usually around 12 mph) your wind turbine will be producing 1.5 kilowatt hours each and every hour, or at least until the wind dies down. As the wind dies down, the power output exponentially decreases until the wind reaches a low speed (generally around 4-6 mph). At this low wind speed no power production will occur, the wind just does not have enough energy to spin the blades on the home wind turbine. Since, the wind doesn’t always blow at 12 mph or higher, scientists have calculated averages for actual wind power production from a turbine. Now I won’t get into all the details, but 40% peak production is very good and we will use that for the calculations to follow.

So now that we know that we have a 1.5 kilowatt small wind turbine and we know that 40% annual power production is near the best we could ever hope for, we can calculate a best case scenario for power output. Simply multiply your turbine’s rated output by the number of hours in a year as well as the 40% annual production statistic.

1.5 x 8,760 x 0.40 = 5,256 kWh’s

This gives us a theoretical annual output of 5,256 kilowatt hours. Now from here, we go back to the car. The Nissan Leaf can store up to 24 kilowatt hours of energy and can travel approximately 100 miles per charge. Since we know that the average American travels 12,000 miles per year, we can accurately deduce that in order to drive the Nissan Leaf as we would like to, we will need to charge it a minimum of 120 times. So, since we are considering best case scenarios, let assume that every time your car is plugged in you will be producing energy at the constant 40%. If that were the case, the Nissan leaf would require 2,880 kilowatt hours (or 120 x 24 kilowatt hours) of energy per year, and that is very do-able.

Now this is where I see a lot of analysis stop. People simply assume that that should work and life should be peachy, however that isn’t the case. As mentioned above and further explained in Understanding the Basics of Windpower, a wind turbine can only produce it’s capacity (in this case 1.5 kilowatts) once each hour. So in the 4-8 hours of charging time for your Nissan Leaf, your 1.5 kilowatt turbine will only produce a maximum of 6-12 kilowatt hours, while the car requires 24 kilowatt hours. And just to emphasize the 6-12 kilowatt hours is a maximum, when output is full and the winds are howling.

I just want to close by saying that in no way am I saying small wind and residential wind systems are not the future of America’s energy policy, nor am I saying that they will not have a large part in powering the cars of tomorrow. I simply wanted to dispell any misconceptions concerning the feasibility of residential wind equipment charging the electric cars of tomorrow.

Read Full Post »

Aquamarine’s Wave Energy Oyster Takes Big Step Forward

MendoCoastCurrent, October 30, 2009

Just last week in Scotland the Oyster from Aquamarine Power passed a crucial test and is no longer in locked-down position on the seabed. Now the Oyster moves back and forth in the ocean waves, pumping high-pressure water to its onshore hydro-electric turbine as it readies for full-commissioning.

The Oyster captures energy found in near-shore waves up to depths of 10 to 12 metres and consists of a hinged flap connected to the seabed at around 10m depth. Each passing wave moves the flap which drives a hydraulic piston to deliver high-pressure water to an onshore turbine which generates electricity. The Oyster now goes through commissioning in advance of grid connection as the official switch on by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond is set for on November 20, 2009.

Martin McAdam, Aquamarine Power chief executive said: “We are delighted to have passed this crucial stage in commissioning the world’s very first Oyster wave energy convertor. This major milestone shows that the Oyster does what we have always believed it will do, and we look forward to completing commissioning and producing clean, green energy from Scotland’s waves in the coming months.”

Read Full Post »

Pelamis Wave Energy Device Testing Again

NAO NAKANISHI, Reuters, October 5, 2009

A first attempt fell victim to the crisis: now in the docks of Scotland’s ancient capital, a second-generation scarlet Sea Snake is being prepared to harness the waves of Britain’s northern islands to generate electricity.

Dwarfed by 180 metres of tubing, scores of engineers clamber over the device, which is designed to dip and ride the swelling sea with each move being converted into power to be channelled through subsea cables.

Due to be installed next spring at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, northern Scotland, the wave power generator was ordered by German power company E.ON, reflecting serious interest in an emerging technology which is much more expensive than offshore wind.

Interest from the utility companies is driven by regulatory requirements to cut carbon emissions from electricity generation, and it helps in a capital-intensive sector.

Venture capitalists interested in clean tech projects typically have shorter horizons for required returns than the 10-20 years such projects can take, so the utilities’ deeper pockets and solid capital base are useful.

“Our view … is this is a 2020 market place,” said Amaan Lafayette, E.ON’s marine development manager. “We would like to see a small-scale plant of our own in water in 2015-2017, built on what we are doing here. It’s a kind of generation we haven’t done before.”

The World Energy Council has estimated the market potential for wave energy at more than 2,000 terawatt hours a year — or about 10% of world electricity consumption — representing capital expenditure of more than 500 billion pounds ($790 billion).

Island nation Britain has a leading role in developing the technology for marine power, which government advisor the Carbon Trust says could in future account for 20% of the country’s electricity. The government is stepping up support as part of a 405 million pound investment in renewable energy to help its ambition of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 from 1990 levels, while securing energy supply. (The challenge is more about getting to a place where we are comparable with other renewable technologies… We want to get somewhere around offshore wind,” said Lafayette.)

Britain’s Crown Estate, which owns the seabed within 12 nautical miles of the coast, is also holding a competition for a commercial marine energy project in Pentland Firth in northern Scotland.

Besides wave power, Britain is testing systems to extract the energy from tides: private company Marine Current Turbines Ltd (MCT) last year opened the world’s first large-scale tidal turbine SeaGen in Northern Ireland.

DEVELOPING LIKE WIND

“We are often compared to the wind industry 20 years ago,” said Andrew Scott, project development manager at Pelamis Wave Power Ltd, which is developing the Sea Snake system, known as P2. Standing beside the train-sized serpent, Pelamis’ Scott said wave power projects are taking a variety of forms, which he said was similar to the development of the wind turbine. “You had vertical axis, horizontal axis and every kind of shapes before the industry consolidated on what you know as acceptable average modern day turbines.”

The Edinburgh Snake follows a pioneering commercial wave power project the company set up in Portugal last September, out of action since the collapse of Australian-based infrastructure group Babcock & Brown which held a majority share. “It’s easy to develop your prototypes and models in the lab, but as soon as you put them in water, it swallows capital,” said John Liljelund, CEO of Finnish wave energy firm AW-Energy, which just received $4.4 million from the European Union to develop its WaveRoller concept in Portugal.

At present, industry executives say marine power costs about double that from offshore wind farms, which require investment of around 2-3 million euros per megawatt. Solar panels cost about 3-4 million per megawatt, and solar thermal mirror power about 5 million.

UTILITY ACTION

Other utility companies involved in wave power trials include Spain’s Iberdrola, which has a small experimental wave farm using floating buoys called “Power Take- offs” off the coast of northern Spain. It is examining sites for a subsea tidal turbine project made by Norwegian company Hammerfest Strom.

Countries developing the technology besides Britain include Portugal, Ireland, Spain, South Korea and the United States: about 100 companies are vying for a share of the market, but only a handful have tested their work in the ocean.

Privately owned Pelamis has focussed on wave energy since 1998, has its own full-scale factory in Leith dock and sees more orders for the second generation in prospect.

Lafayette said E.ON examined more than 100 devices since 2001 before picking Sea Snake for its first ocean project, a three-year test: “They have a demonstrable track record … and commercial focus and business focus.”

A single Sea Snake has capacity of 750 kilowatts: by around 2015, Pelamis hopes each unit will have capacity of 20 megawatts, or enough to power about 30,000 homes.

Neither Pelamis nor E.ON would elaborate on the cost of the Sea Snake, but they said the goal is to bring it down to the level of offshore wind farms.

Read Full Post »

Aquamarine’s Oyster Now Placed & Connected in Ocean

Hydro Review, August 18, 2009

Off the north coast of Scotland in waters 10 to 12 meters deep, ocean energy developer Aquamarine Power Ltd. has bolted its Oyster wave energy converter to the ocean floor and expects to be generating power by year’s end.

A team of offshore professionals eased the 194-ton converter into the sea at the European Marine Energy Center in the Orkney Islands. “Getting Oyster into the water and connected to the seabed was always going to be the most difficult step,” said Aquamarine CEO Martin McAdam. “Its completion is a real credit to everyone who has worked hard on planning and executing this major engineering feat on schedule.”

The Oyster is designed to capture energy from near-shore waves. The system includes an oscillating pump fitted with double-acting water pistons. Each wave activates the pump, delivering high-pressure water by pipeline to an onshore turbine that generates electricity. All electrical components of the Oyster are onshore, making it durable enough to withstand Scotland’s rough seas, McAdam said.

Marine constructor Fugro Seacore installed the Oyster converter under a $2.9 million contract.

Read Full Post »

Establishing Oyster Nearshore Wave Energy Off Orkney

MendoCoastCurrent, August 4, 2009

Oyster nearshore wave energy technology from Aquamarine Power is in the process of being placed on the seabed in the Atlantic off the coast of the Orkney Islands, Scotland for trials in autumn 2009.

The Oyster is based on a large, hydraulic oscillator fitted with pistons and activated by waves.  The oscillation pumps pressurized water through a pipeline to the shore.  Onshore, conventional hydro-electric generators convert the high-pressure water into electricity.

The concept is based on research from Queen’s University in Belfast. “Oyster’s technology is highly innovative because it relies on simplicity,” says Ronan Doherty, CTO at Aquamarine Power.

“Its offshore component – a highly reliable flap with minimal submerged moving parts – is the key to its success when operating in seas vulnerable to bad weather where maintenance can be very difficult.”  Doherty adds that as there is no underwater generator, electronics or gearbox and all the power generation equipment in onshore, where it is easily accessible.

Oyster technology is best deployed in near-shore regions at depths of 26-52 feet, where wave action tends to be more consistent and less variable in direction. The smaller size of waves near the shore also maximizes the lifetime of the device and the consistency of power generation. Each Oyster has a peak capacity of 300-600 kW but is designed to be deployed in multiple arrays.

Although still in the early stages of development, Aquamarine Power believes Oyster has great potential. “Our computer modeling of coastlines suitable for this technology shows that Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the UK are ideal candidates in Europe,” says Doherty. “But globally there is huge scope in areas like the Northwest coast of the U.S. and coastlines off South Africa, Australia and Chile.”

Read Full Post »

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 the PB150 have been completed. OPT has also awarded Isleburn Ltd. the steel fabrication contract for the PowerBuoy structure. Isleburn is an Inverness, Scotland-based fabrication and engineering company for offshore structures.

Once the steel fabrication is complete, the 150-kW PowerBuoy will be fully assembled and ready for deployment by the end of 2009 at EMEC, where OPT has already secured a 2-MW berth.

When the PowerBuoy has been fully demonstrated at EMEC, OPT intends to deploy further PB150 PowerBuoys in projects around the world at locations including Reedsport, Oregon; Victoria, Australia and Cornwall, U.K.

OPT CEO Mark R. Draper said, “These two milestones demonstrate significant progress towards the deployment of OPT’s first PB150. This achievement represents a pivotal stage in the company’s development and that we are on track to achieve our objective of utilizing wave power as an economically-viable source of renewable energy.”

Read Full Post »

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 tides, and the wind powers the ocean waves.

Wave energy is the capture of the power from waves on the surface of the ocean. It is one of the newer forms of renewable or ‘green’ energy under development, not as advanced as solar energy, fuel cells, wind energy, ethanol, geothermal companies, and flywheels. However, interest in wave energy is increasing and may be the wave of the future in coastal areas according to many sources including the International Energy Agency Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems (Report 2009).

Although fewer than 12 MW of ocean power capacity has been installed to date worldwide, we find a significant increase of investments reaching over $2 billion for R&D worldwide within the ocean power market including the development of commercial ocean wave power combination wind farms within the next three years.

Tidal turbines are a new technology that can be used in many tidal areas. They are basically wind turbines that can be located anywhere there is strong tidal flow. Because water is about 800 times denser than air, tidal turbines will have to be much sturdier than wind turbines. They will be heavier and more expensive to build but will be able to capture more energy. For example, in the U.S. Pacific Northwest region alone, it’s feasible that wave energy could produce 40–70 kilowatts (kW) per meter (3.3 feet) of western coastline. Renewable energy analysts believe there is enough energy in the ocean waves to provide up to 2 terawatts of electricity.

Companies to Watch in the Developing Wave Power Industry:

Siemens AG (SI) is a joint venture partner of Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation, a leader in advanced hydro power technology and services, which owns Wavegen, Scotland’s first wave power company. Wavegen’s device is known as an oscillating water column, which is normally sited at the shoreline rather than in open water. A small facility is already connected to the Scottish power grid, and the company is working on another project in Northern Spain.

Ocean Power Technologies, Inc (OPTT) develops proprietary systems that generate electricity through ocean waves. Its PowerBuoy system is used to supply electricity to local and regional electric power grids. Iberdrola hired the company to build and operate a small wave power station off Santona, Spain, and is talking with French oil major Total (TOT) about another wave energy project off the French coast. It is also working on projects in England, Scotland, Hawaii, and Oregon.

Pelamis Wave Power, formerly known as Ocean Power Delivery, is a privately held company which has several owners including various venture capital funds, General Electric Energy (GE) and Norsk Hydro ADR (NHYDY.PK). Pelamis Wave Power is an excellent example of Scottish success in developing groundbreaking technology which may put Scotland at the forefront of Europe’s renewable revolution and create over 18,000 green high wage jobs in Scotland over the next decade. The Pelamis project is also being studied by Chevron (CVX).

Endesa SA ADS (ELEYY.PK) is a Spanish electric utility which is developing, in partnership with Pelamis, the world’s first full scale commercial wave power farm off Aguçadoura, Portugal which powers over 15,000 homes. A second phase of the project is now planned to increase the installed capacity from 2.25MW to 21MW using a further 25 Pelamis machines.

RWE AG ADR (RWEOY.PK) is a German management holding company with six divisions involved in power and energy. It is developing wave power stations in Siadar Bay on the Isle of Lewis off the coast of Scotland.

Australia’s Oceanlinx offers an oscillating wave column design and counts Germany’s largest power generator RWE as an investor. It has multiple projects in Australia and the U.S., as well as South Africa, Mexico, and Britain.

Alstom (AOMFF.PK) has also announced development in the promising but challenging field of capturing energy from waves and tides adding to the further interest from major renewable power developers in this emerging industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced several wave energy developments including a cost-shared value of over $18 million, under the DOE’s competitive solicitation for Advanced Water Power Projects. The projects will advance commercial viability, cost-competitiveness, and market acceptance of new technologies that can harness renewable energy from oceans and rivers. The DOE has selected the following organizations and projects for grant awards:

First Topic Area: Technology Development (Up to $600,000 for up to two years)

Electric Power Research Institute, Inc (EPRI) (Palo Alto, Calif.) Fish-friendly hydropower turbine development & deployment. EPRI will address the additional developmental engineering required to prepare a more efficient and environmentally friendly hydropower turbine for the commercial market and allow it to compete with traditional designs.

Verdant Power Inc. (New York, N.Y.) Improved structure and fabrication of large, high-power kinetic hydropower systems rotors. Verdant will design, analyze, develop for manufacture, fabricate and thoroughly test an improved turbine blade design structure to allow for larger, higher-power and more cost-effective tidal power turbines.

Public Utility District #1 of Snohomish County (SnoPUD) (Everett, Wash.) Puget Sound Tidal Energy In-Water Testing and Development Project. SnoPUD will conduct in-water testing and demonstration of tidal flow technology as a first step toward potential construction of a commercial-scale power plant. The specific goal of this proposal is to complete engineering design and obtain construction approvals for a Puget Sound tidal pilot demonstration plant in the Admiralty Inlet region of the Sound.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company – San Francisco, Calif. WaveConnect Wave Energy In-Water Testing and Development Project. PG&E will complete engineering design, conduct baseline environmental studies, and submit all license construction and operation applications required for a wave energy demonstration plant for the Humboldt WaveConnect site in Northern California.

Concepts ETI, Inc (White River Junction, Vt.) Development and Demonstration of an Ocean Wave Converter (OWC) Power System. Concepts ETI will prepare detailed design, manufacturing and installation drawings of an OWC. They will then manufacture and install the system in Maui, Hawaii.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) – Manassas, Va., Advanced Composite Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion – “OTEC”, cold water pipe project. Lockheed Martin will validate manufacturing techniques for coldwater pipes critical to OTEC in order to help create a more cost-effective OTEC system.

Second Topic Area, Market Acceleration (Award size: up to $500,000)

Electric Power Research Institute (Palo Alto, Calif.) Wave Energy Resource Assessment and GIS Database for the U.S. EPRI will determine the naturally available resource base and the maximum practicable extractable wave energy resource in the U.S., as well as the annual electrical energy which could be produced by typical wave energy conversion devices from that resource.

Georgia Tech Research Corporation (Atlanta, Ga.) Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the U.S. Georgia Tech will utilize an advanced ocean circulation numerical model to predict tidal currents and compute both available and effective power densities for distribution to potential project developers and the general public.

Re Vision Consulting, LLC (Sacramento, Calif.) Best Siting Practices for Marine and Hydrokinetic Technologies With Respect to Environmental and Navigational Impacts. Re Vision will establish baseline, technology-based scenarios to identify potential concerns in the siting of marine and hydrokinetic energy devices, and to provide information and data to industry and regulators.

Pacific Energy Ventures, LLC (Portland, Ore.) Siting Protocol for Marine and Hydrokinetic Energy Projects. Pacific Energy Ventures will bring together a multi-disciplinary team in an iterative and collaborative process to develop, review, and recommend how emerging hydrokinetic technologies can be sited to minimize environmental impacts.

PCCI, Inc. (Alexandria, Va.) Marine and Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy Technologies: Identification of Potential Navigational Impacts and Mitigation Measures. PCCI will provide improved guidance to help developers understand how marine and hydrokinetic devices can be sited to minimize navigational impact and to expedite the U.S. Coast Guard review process.

Science Applications International Corporation (SAI) – San Diego, Calif., International Standards Development for Marine and Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy. SAIC will assist in the development of relevant marine and hydrokinetic energy industry standards, provide consistency and predictability to their development, and increase U.S. industry’s collaboration and representation in the development process.

Third Topic Area, National Marine Energy Centers (Award size: up to $1.25 million for up to five years)

Oregon State University, and University of Washington – Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center. OSU and UW will partner to develop the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center with a full range of capabilities to support wave and tidal energy development for the U.S. Center activities are structured to: facilitate device commercialization, inform regulatory and policy decisions, and close key gaps in understanding.

University of Hawaii (Honolulu, Hawaii) National Renewable Marine Energy Center in Hawaii will facilitate the development and implementation of commercial wave energy systems and to assist the private sector in moving ocean thermal energy conversion systems beyond proof-of-concept to pre-commercialization, long-term testing.

Types of Hydro Turbines

There are two main types of hydro turbines: impulse and reaction. The type of hydropower turbine selected for a project is based on the height of standing water— the flow, or volume of water, at the site. Other deciding factors include how deep the turbine must be set, efficiency, and cost.

Impulse Turbines

The impulse turbine generally uses the velocity of the water to move the runner and discharges to atmospheric pressure. The water stream hits each bucket on the runner. There is no suction on the down side of the turbine, and the water flows out the bottom of the turbine housing after hitting the runner. An impulse turbine, for example Pelton or Cross-Flow is generally suitable for high head, low flow applications.

Reaction Turbines

A reaction turbine develops power from the combined action of pressure and moving water. The runner is placed directly in the water stream flowing over the blades rather than striking each individually. Reaction turbines include the Propeller, Bulb, Straflo, Tube, Kaplan, Francis or Kenetic are generally used for sites with lower head and higher flows than compared with the impulse turbines.

Types of Hydropower Plants

There are three types of hydropower facilities: impoundment, diversion, and pumped storage. Some hydropower plants use dams and some do not.

Many dams were built for other purposes and hydropower was added later. In the United States, there are about 80,000 dams of which only 2,400 produce power. The other dams are for recreation, stock/farm ponds, flood control, water supply, and irrigation. Hydropower plants range in size from small systems for a home or village to large projects producing electricity for utilities.

Impoundment

The most common type of hydroelectric power plant (above image) is an impoundment facility. An impoundment facility, typically a large hydropower system, uses a dam to store river water in a reservoir. Water released from the reservoir flows through a turbine, spinning it, which in turn activates a generator to produce electricity. The water may be released either to meet changing electricity needs or to maintain a constant reservoir level.

The Future of Ocean and Wave Energy

Wave energy devices extract energy directly from surface waves or from pressure fluctuations below the surface. Renewable energy analysts believe there is enough energy in the ocean waves to provide up to 2 terawatts of electricity. (A terawatt is equal to a trillion watts.)

Wave energy rich areas of the world include the western coasts of Scotland, northern Canada, southern Africa, Japan, Australia, and the northeastern and northwestern coasts of the United States. In the Pacific Northwest alone, it’s feasible that wave energy could produce 40–70 kilowatts (kW) per meter (3.3 feet) of western coastline. The West Coast of the United States is more than a 1,000 miles long.
In general, careful site selection is the key to keeping the environmental impacts of wave energy systems to a minimum. Wave energy system planners can choose sites that preserve scenic shorefronts. They also can avoid areas where wave energy systems can significantly alter flow patterns of sediment on the ocean floor.

Economically, wave energy systems are just beginning to compete with traditional power sources. However, the costs to produce wave energy are quickly coming down. Some European experts predict that wave power devices will soon find lucrative niche markets. Once built, they have low operation and maintenance costs because the fuel they use — seawater — is FREE.

The current cost of wave energy vs. traditional electric power sources?

It has been estimated that improving technology and economies of scale will allow wave generators to produce electricity at a cost comparable to wind-driven turbines, which produce energy at about 4.5 cents kWh.

For now, the best wave generator technology in place in the United Kingdom is producing energy at an average projected/assessed cost of 6.7 cents kWh.

In comparison, electricity generated by large scale coal burning power plants costs about 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Combined-cycle natural gas turbine technology, the primary source of new electric power capacity is about 3 cents per kilowatt hour or higher. It is not unusual to average costs of 5 cents per kilowatt-hour and up for municipal utilities districts.

Currently, the United States, Brazil, Europe, Scotland, Germany, Portugal, Canada and France all lead the developing wave energy industry that will return 30% growth or more for the next five years.

Read Full Post »

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 a wave action pump sending pressured water in a pipeline to an electricity generator.

The generator, to be built in Orkney, Scotland, is expected to produce between 300 and 600 kilowatts for Scotland’s national grid.

The contract is part of the Scottish government’s goal to derive 50% its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Read Full Post »

RenewableEnergyWorld “Ocean Energy 2009” Excerpts

MARSHA W. JOHNSTON, RenewableEnergyWorld.com, March 2009

One hundred and forty-one years ago, the relentless sea off Scotland’s coast inspired the following observation from native son and author George MacDonald:

I climbed the heights above the village, and looked abroad over the Atlantic. What a waste of aimless tossing to and fro! Gray mist above, full of falling rain; gray, wrathful waters underneath, foaming and bursting as billow broke upon billow…they burst on the rocks at the end of it, and rushed in shattered spouts and clouds of spray far into the air over their heads. “Will the time ever come,” I thought, when man shall be able to store up even this force for his own ends? Who can tell.”

In the United States, permitting may be an even bigger hurdle to marine energy deployment than financing. Between 25 and 35 different U.S. federal, state and local regulatory agencies claim some jurisdiction over marine power deployment. In the UK, two agencies handle permitting.

Today, we can certainly say, “Yes, the time will come.” The only question remaining is how long it will be before humankind routinely and widely uses electricity generated from the kinetic power of ocean tides, currents and waves.

If one defines “commercial ocean energy” as several tens of megawatts, the world cannot yet boast a commercial ocean energy installation. Indeed, only two installations of either wave, tidal or in-stream current devices are grid-connected and can generate over 1 megawatt (MW) of power. One is Pelamis Wave Power’s 2.25-MW Aguçadoura project off of Portugal’s northern coast and the other is Bristol-based Marine Current Turbines’ (MCT) SeaGen, a US $20-million commercial-scale tidal-energy project under development in Northern Ireland’s turbulent Strangford Narrows. In December, SeaGen boasted the first tidal turbine to hit a capacity of 1.2 MW.

(The biggest exception to commercial ocean energy production is the world’s longest running tidal power plant, the 240-MW La Rance, in France. But the plant’s barrage technology, which traps water behind a dam and releases it at low tide, has fallen out of favor due to its perceived higher environmental impact than underwater turbines. Nova Scotia has also been operating a 20-MW barrage Tidal Generating Station in the tidal-rich Bay of Fundy since 1984.)

The rest of the world’s wave, tidal and current installations, some of which have been in the water as far back as the 1990s, are experimental and prototype units ranging in size from 35 kilowatts (kW) to 400 kW. Because these units operate only intermittently and are not typically connected to any grid, it is not possible to determine their total power generation.

Many of these units are prototype demonstration units for the much bigger installations that are under development and that will begin to realize significant exploitation of the world’s ocean energy resource. For example, Ocean Power Technologies Inc. will use the 150-kW PowerBuoy it has been testing since the mid-90s as the “workhorse” for the 270-MW, four-site wave energy plant off California and Oregon coasts that it has partnered with Lockheed Martin to develop, says CEO George Taylor.

And Inverness, Scotland-based WaveGen expects to use 40 units of the 100-kw turbine it just installed off the Island of Islay for a 4-MW farm off of Scotland’s Isle of Lewis. Meanwhile, Pelamis says if its 750-kw “sea snake” devices, which were installed last year, make it through the winter, it will put 37 more of them in the water, generating 30 MW.

All of the wave, tidal, ocean and river current power around North America that can be practically extracted could together provide 10% of today’s electrical consumption in the U.S., says Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, CA. He adds that the total water resource could, it is sometimes said, possibly power the world twice over, but a lot of it is out of reach. “Hudson’s Bay, off the Arctic Circle, has HUGE tidal power, but it is thousands of miles from where anyone lives. We have HUGE wave resources off Aleutian Islands, but the same problem,” he says.  See EPRI’s U.S. Offshore Wave Energy Resource Map, below.

What will be the “magic” year for large-scale ocean energy deployment? Most developers indicate 2011-2012. Trey Taylor, co-founder and president of Verdant Power, which is moving into the commercial development phase of its 7-year-old Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project, says the firm aims to have “at least 35 MW” in the water by the end of 2011.

Bedard is more circumspect. “I think it will be 2015 in Europe and 2025 in U.S. for big deployment,” he says, adding that the year cited depends entirely on the definition of “big” and “commercial,” which he defines as “many tens of megawatts.”

Verdant’s Taylor expects greater initial success in Canada. “The fundamental difference between Canada and the U.S. is that the underpinning of processes in Canada is collaborative and in the U.S. it is adversarial. It’s just the nature of Canadians, collaborating for community good, whereas in the U.S. people are afraid of being sued,” he said.

Bedard says the U.S. could catch up to Europe earlier, if the Obama Administration walks its big renewable energy infrastructure investment talk. “But if it’s business as usual, it could be later, depending on the economy,” he says.

Since the global economy began to melt down last September, many ocean energy companies have had to refocus their investment plans. With venture capital and institutional monies drying or dried up, firms are turning to public funds, strategic partners such as utilities and big engineering firms, and angel investors.

In November, MCT retained London-based Cavendish Corp Finance to seek new financing. Raymond Fagan, the Cavendish partner charged with MCT, said although tidal energy is not as advanced as wind or solar, he has seen a “strong level of interest so far from large engineering-type firms in MCT’s leading position.” Because MCT holds patents and is delivering power to the grid ahead of its competitors, Fagan thinks Cavendish can bring it together with such strategic partners.

In addition to the economic climate, he notes that the drop in oil and gas prices is further slowing renewable energy investment decisions. “Six to 12 months ago, people were leaping into renewable energy opportunities,” he says, adding that the UK government’s recent call for marine energy proposals for the enormous Pentland Firth zone north of Scotland will improve Cavendish’s chances of getting financing. Though it has yet to make a public announcement, MCT is widely viewed as a prime operator for the zone.

Monies are still available. Witness Pelamis Wave Power’s infusion of 5 million pounds sterling in November, which it says it will use for ongoing investment in core R&D and continuing development of its manufacturing processes and facilities.

In the U.S., permitting may be an even bigger hurdle to marine energy deployment than financing. Between 25 and 35 different U.S. federal, state and local regulatory agencies claim some jurisdiction over marine power deployment. In the UK, two agencies handle permitting. Bedard notes however, that streamlining the process in the U.S. may have begun with the recent opening of a new six-month process for licensing pilot marine energy plants.

Marine energy experts agree that there are more opportunities for wave power than for tidal, as there are simply fewer exploitable tidal sites. In technology terms, however, tidal turbines have benefited from a quarter century of wind turbine development, says Virginia Tech professor George Hagerman. Despite more widely available wave resource, wave energy developers face the challenge of needing many more devices than do tidal energy developers, and have a higher cabling cost to export the power.

As Christopher Barry, co-chair of the Ocean Renewable Energy panel at the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, explains: “The major challenge [to ocean energy] is not pure technology, but the side issues of power export and making the technology affordable and survivable.”

Read Full Post »

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 generated may have been tiny, but for marine engineers the significance was huge. Their industry had stopped paddling and started to swim.

For small companies trying to get wave or tide devices off the drawing board and into the sea, many problems lie in wait. All turbines, whether they sit on the seabed or float, must withstand that once-in-a-century wave that could be a thousand times more powerful than the average. Conditions vary with the seasons and the seabed. A device that works in a fjord might not function in a firth. Rigorous, long-term testing is therefore vital.

“There are parallels with wind,” says Alan Mortimer, head of renewables policy at Scottish Power. “Many different types of turbine were proposed in the early Eighties. They boiled down to a small number of successful concepts. The same needs to happen with marine devices, but the difference is that they need to be full- size just to be tested.

“To get a reasonable number of prototypes into the water costs millions. What these small companies need is capital support.”

That, however, is hard to find. The Wave and Tidal Energy Support Scheme (Wates), which put GBP13.5 million into promising technologies, is now closed. Last year the Scottish Government offered the 10m Saltire Prize for a commercially viable scheme, but the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), in its recent report Marine Energy: More Than Just a Drop in the Ocean?, called on the Government to provide another 40m.

This would go towards schemes to be tested at EMEC, the European Marine Energy Centre, which has two supported sites, with grid access, at Orkney. It was there that an Irish company, OpenHydro, made the grid breakthrough last year. “It’s desperately important that we grasp the nettle now,” says William Banks, IMechE’s president. “We have the micro-systems in place and I’d like to see them developed to the macro stage. However, unless we do that step by step, we’ll be in trouble.”

An estimated 50 teams are working around the world on marine energy. The danger is that Britain, and Scotland in particular, could lose the race, even though, as Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, says, “Scotland has a marine energy resource which is unrivalled in Europe.”

Scotland has a quarter of Europe’s tidal resources and a tenth of its wave potential.

Around 1,000 people work in Scottish marine energy, but that figure could billow. “You’re talking about an exercise that could transform the marine industry into something equivalent to oil and gas,” says Martin McAdam, whose company, Aquamarine Power, is growing fast.

Among his rivals in Scotland are AWS Ocean Energy, based near Inverness, with Archimedes, a submerged wave machine; Hammerfest UK, which wants to develop three 60MW tidal sites and is working with Scottish Power; Pelamis Wave Power, who are based in Edinburgh; and Scotrenewables, based in Orkney, who are currently developing a floating tidal turbine.

Politicians need to be educated about marine energy’s potential, says Banks. Indeed, IMechE has highlighted the need for sustained political leadership if what many see as the biggest problem – that of the grid – is to be solved. Why bring energy onshore if it can’t then reach homes?

“Grids were built to connect large power stations to cities. Now you’re going to have electricity generated all over the countryside. It’s a huge challenge,” says McAdam.

“We have had meetings with Ofgen and the national grid companies and we’re outlining the need to have grids to support at least 3,000MW of energy by 2020. That is definitely possible.” McAdam adds: “A European undersea grid is also being promoted and we’re very supportive of that.”

Such a system would help to overcome a frequent objection to renewables – their fickleness. If waves were strong in Scotland, Finland or France could benefit, and vice versa.

Another challenge is the cost of installation. “At the moment we’re competing with oil and gas for boats,” says McAdam. “We need to move away from using heavy-lift, jack-up vessels.” The answer might be devices that can be floated into position and then weighted down.

The race between suppliers is speeding up. Permission for a 4MW station at Siadar, off Lewis in the Western Isles, has just been granted to Wavegen, based in Inverness, and Npower Renewables. It could power about 1,500 homes, creating 70 jobs.

Among the success stories are the three 140-metre, red tubes developed by Pelamis (named after a sea serpent) which already float off the northern Portuguese coast at Aguadoura. More Pelamis turbines are to be installed at EMEC, along with Aquamarine’s wave device Oyster.

Oyster is basically a giant flap which feeds wave energy onshore to be converted to electricity. It has already been made, at a former oil and gas plant at Nigg, north of Inverness. A high- pressure pipeline was completed in December and a hydro-electric station will be installed this spring. In the summer, Oyster will finally be bolted to piles hammered into the seabed.

Unlike wave energy, tidal power needs a channel between two land masses – and in the roaring Pentland Firth, between Caithness and Orkney, Scotland has what has been called “the Saudi Arabia of marine power”, Europe’s largest tidal resource. To exploit it, a GBP2 million contract to build Aquamarine’s tidal power device, Neptune, was awarded last month. It will be tested at EMEC.

Elsewhere, SeaGen, an “underwater windmill” developed by a Bristol company, has just generated 1.2MW near the mouth of Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland.
But the most controversial of Britain’s tidal energy schemes is, of course, in the Severn Estuary, where a barrage could provide around 5% of Britain’s energy. Environmentalists fear irreparable damage to marshes and mudflats, but the Government is known to prefer the barrage to other, smaller options. The decision it takes next year is sure to be eagerly watched in Scotland.

Somewhat overshadowed by the Severn plan is Wave Hub, a project to build a wave-power station 10 miles off St Ives, on Cornwall’s north coast, using both Pelamis and a sea-bed device developed by ORECon of Plymouth. An application to create a safety area around it has just been submitted, part of the meticulous planning that precedes any marine trial.

“We have to have environmentalists looking at the impact on fisheries, flora and fauna,” says McAdam. “And we have to be completely open with the communities we’re going into. But most people realise that climate change and energy security are real things. We want to minimalise our environmental impact and give the country a means of isolating itself from the volatility of oil and gas.”

In theory, marine energy could generate a fifth of the UK’s electricity needs, but that would require a multitude of stations. Bill Banks believes nuclear power will be needed. “But we also need a variety of renewables,” he says. “Marine will take its place along with bio, hydro and wind energy. It’s available, it’s there at the moment, and if we get our act together I think we can lead Europe. We need a synergy of activity.”

Read Full Post »

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 major utility has ordered a wave energy converter for installation in the UK and the first time the Pelamis P2 machine will be tested anywhere in the world.

Pelamis already has the world’s first multi-unit wave farm operational some 5km off the north coast of Portugal at Agucadora, where three 750kW machines deliver 2.25MW of electricity to the Portuguese grid. Operator Enersis has issued a letter of intent to Pelamis for a further 20MW of capacity to expand the successful project.

Licenses, consents and funding have been granted for the Orcadian Wave Farm, which will consist of four Pelamis generators supplied to ScottishPower Renewables. This installation, also at EMEC, will utilise existing electrical subsea cables, substation and grid connection.

Funding and consent has also been granted for Wave Hub, a wave energy test facility 15km off the north coast of Cornwall UK which is expected to be commissioned this year. It will consist of four separate berths, each capable of exporting 5MW of wave generated electricity. Ocean Prospect has secured exclusive access to one of the Wave Hub berths for the connection of multiple Pelamis devices.

Read Full Post »

Pentland Firth, the Saudi Arabia of Tidal Power, Growing Full Tilt

JENNY HAWORTH, Scotman.com, February 12, 2009

MORE than three dozen energy companies from across the world are hoping to install wave energy devices in a stretch of sea off the north of Scotland. The renewable energy firms all have their sights on the Pentland Firth, which is considered one of the best locations in the world for generating electricity from the power of the tides.

Yesterday, the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed and will authorize any offshore  wave energy project, announced it had invited 38 companies to submit detailed plans for schemes in the Pentland Firth.

This is the first stretch of water off the UK to be opened up for development of marine renewables, meaning successful companies will be building among the first marine wave energy projects in the world.

Each company hopes to install dozens, or even hundreds of wave energy devices, such as tidal turbines, in the ocean.

Alex Salmond, the First Minister, hopes it will help Scotland become a world leader in renewable energy, saying “the fact that so many companies have already registered their interest in developing wave and tidal energy projects in the Pentland Firth and surrounding waters is extremely encouraging.”

“The Scottish Government has recently launched the world’s greatest-ever single prize for innovation in marine energy, the £10 million Saltire Prize, and the opening of the Pentland Firth for development is a timely and crucial move.”

The Crown Estate invited initial expressions of interest in the Pentland Firth from renewables firms in November 2008. A spokeswoman said she could not reveal how many companies had shown an interest because of competition rules, but she confirmed 38 firms would be invited to the next stage – to tender for sites in the Pentland Firth.

They must now submit detailed applications, spelling out how many devices they want to install in the water, by the end of May.

The Crown Estate will decide which are suitable, and the companies will then have to apply for planning permission from the Scottish Government.

Calum Duncan, Scottish conservation manager for the Marine Conservation Society, welcomed renewable technologies, but said the possible impact of the devices on sensitive seabed habitats must be considered, including the likely affect on mussel beds and feeding areas for fish, basking sharks and seabirds.

Liam McArthur, the Liberal Democrat energy spokesperson and MSP for Orkney, also welcomed the strong interest but had reservations. “This energetic stretch of water will be a challenging resource to tame,” he said.

“We still know relatively little about the Pentland Firth and what will happen when we start putting devices in the water there.

“While the Pentland Firth is often described as the Saudi Arabia of tidal power, the challenges it presents also make it the Mount Everest.”

Read Full Post »

Aberdeenshire Council in Scotland Backing Wave Energy

DAVID EWENCHIEF, The Evening Express, February 11, 2009

The Aberdeenshire Council has pointed to tides – rather than wind turbines – as the best green solution to the energy crisis. The council took part in a consultation on the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Bill, which is going through Parliament, suggesting tide and current generation would be more reliable than wind turbines. “Wind cannot take up the slack. And we have a fair amount of coastline to play with,” a report said.

Aberdeenshire council suggested mini hydro-electric schemes on its rivers could also be more effective than wind turbines. Nearly 200 wind turbines have already been approved in the Northeast.

Mervyn Newberry, former chairman of the Skelmonae Windfarm Action Group, said he was not surprised at Aberdeenshire council’s sudden change of heart over the wind turbines. “It is completely expected,” he said. “The politicians just go with whatever is popular at the time. Though I am not as familiar with tidal energy, I am certainly more in favour of this form of energy because it doesn’t destroy the environment.”

Tarves, in Aberdeenshire, has been hit with a proposal for four wind turbines. Chairman of Tarves Community Council Bob Davidson claimed Aberdeenshire Council has been inconsistent in backing wind turbines. “I would not be surprised at inconsistency from the local authority,” he said.

Today Aberdeenshire Council boss Anne Robertson defended the use of wind turbines. She pointed out that tide technology has lagged behind wind-based technology in the North-east. Mrs Robertson stressed that the impact of wind turbines on the landscape was always considered. She said: “The wind turbine issue is one that has been dealt with through the planning process. “There have been quite a number of schemes turned down in Aberdeenshire.”

In its response to the bill consultation, Aberdeen City Council stressed the “importance of joint working” to reduce energy consumption. Wind turbines planned for Aberdeen Bay could supply all of the city’s houses with electricity.

Aberdeen-based Green Ocean Energy Ltd is developing a wave-based energy system to work alongside wind turbines. The Scottish Government rules on planning projects at sea.

Read Full Post »

New Wave Treader Attaches to Offshore Wind Turbines

MATTHEW MCDERMOTT, Treehuger.com, February 10, 2009

Based off the Aberdeen, Scotland-based company’s Ocean Treader, the Wave Treader is designed to mount onto the tower of an offshore wind turbine.

The Wave Treader concept utilizes the arms and sponsons from Ocean Treader and instead of reacting against a floating spar buoy, will react through an interface structure onto the foundation of an offshore wind turbine. Between the arms and the interface structure hydraulic cylinders are mounted and as the wave passes the machine first the forward sponson will lift and fall and then the aft sponson will lift and fall each stroking their hydraulic cylinder in turn. This pressurizes hydraulic fluid which is then smoothed by hydraulic accumulators before driving a hydraulic motor which in turn drives an electricity generator. The electricity is then exported through the cable shared with the wind turbine.

Each Wave Treader is rated at 500kW and can turn to face into the waves to ensure optimal power generation. The first full-size prototype is expected to be built later this year, with commercial versions being made available in 2011.

Read Full Post »

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 testing will be an extended commissioning period, with the next two years designed to improve the operation of the equipment. It would become the first utility to test a wave energy device at the Orkney centre, which is the only grid-connected marine test site in Europe.

“We recognise much work has to follow before we can be certain marine energy will fulfil its potential,” Amaan Lafayette, Marine Development Manager at E.On, said. “But the success of this device will give us the confidence to move to the next phase of commercialisation, which is larger arrays around the UK coastline.”

Read Full Post »

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 1970s, the big snag was the market for that technology consisted of people with no money,” said Fraenkel, the 67-year-old co-founder of closely-held Marine Current Turbines. “Now it’s clear governments are gagging for new renewable energy technology.”

MCT last year installed the world’s biggest grid-connected tidal power station in Strangford Lough, an Irish Sea inlet southeast of Belfast. The SeaGen project’s two turbines, which cost 2.5 million pounds ($3.6 million), can produce as much as 1.2 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1,140 homes. The company is one of more than 30 trying to tap tidal currents around the world, six years after the first project sent power to the grid.

Investors may pump 2.5 billion pounds into similar plants in Europe by 2020 as the European Union offers incentives for projects that don’t release carbon dioxide, the gas primarily blamed for global warming. In the US, President Barack Obama plans to increase tax breaks for renewable energy.

“Tidal energy has an enormous future, and the UK has a great resource” if construction costs come down, said Hugo Chandler, renewable energy analyst at the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which advises 28 nations. “It’s time may be just around the corner.”

While tides are a free source of energy, generating power from them is three times more expensive than using natural gas or coal over the life of a project, according to the Carbon Trust, a UK government-funded research unit.

Including capital expenses, fuel and maintenance, UK tidal current power costs 15 pence per kilowatt hour, compared with 5 pence for coal and gas and 7 pence for wind, the trust says.

Designing equipment to survive in salty, corrosive water and installing it in fast-moving currents boosts startup costs, said MCT Managing Director Martin Wright, who founded the Bristol, England-based company with Fraenkel in 2002. MCT raised 30 million pounds for SeaGen and pilot projects, he said, declining to break out the expenses.

Gearboxes and generators have to be watertight. The machinery must withstand flows up to 9.3 knots (10.7 mph) in Strangford Lough, which exert three times the force of projects that harness wind at similar speeds, Fraenkel said.

“The forces you’re trying to tap into are your enemy when it comes to engineering the structure,” said Angela Robotham, MCT’s 54-year-old engineering chief.

The project consists of a 41-meter (135-foot) tower with a 29-meter crossbeam that is raised from the sea for maintenance. Attached to the beam are two rotors to capture incoming and outgoing flows. The turbines convert the energy from tidal flows into electricity, differing from more established “tidal range” technology that uses the rise and fall of water.

Positioned between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, the British Isles have about 15% of the world’s usable tidal current resources, which could generate 5% of domestic electricity demand, the Carbon Trust estimates. Including wave power, the ocean may eventually meet 20 percent of the UK’s energy needs, the government said in June.

OpenHydro, a closely held Dublin company, linked a donut-shaped device with less than a quarter of the capacity of SeaGen to the grid at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, Scotland, last May.

Read Full Post »

Scotland’s Siadar Marine Energy Project Given Go-ahead

BBC News, January 22, 2009

One of the world’s largest wave stations is to be constructed in Scotland off the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles.

The station will create up to 70 jobs and advance Scotland’s bid to lead the world in renewable energy, First Minister Alex Salmond said.

Ministers have granted consent for an application by npower renewables to operate a wave farm with a 4MW capacity at Siadar.

It is one of the first marine energy projects to be approved in the UK.

The technology used is called “oscillating water column”.

Ocean waves move air in and out of chambers in a breakwater, which in turn drives a turbine from Inverness-based Wavegen, known as the Wells turbine, to generate electricity.

Stephen Salter, a professor of engineering design at the University of Edinburgh and a leading expert on renewable energy said that wave power had the potential to provide 100kw of power for every metre of ocean — amounting to a big conventional power station for every 10km of shoreline.

At 4mw of power the Lewis wave farm will be able to power around 1800 homes — a thousand times less powerful than a conventional coal fired Drax power station.

Even so Prof Salter said he believed the Lewis project to be the largest wave farm in the world, adding: “It is still small but the longest journey starts with a single step.”

First Minister Alex Salmond said: “Today’s announcement is a significant step in Scotland’s journey to become a world leader in renewables.

“The Siadar wave farm will be one of the largest consented wave electricity generating station in the world.

“It is the first commercial wave farm in Scotland and is starting with a capacity to power around 1,800 homes.

“Nationally, this development will further strengthen our sector and locally, it has the potential to create up to 70 jobs in the Western Isles.

“This is good news for the Western Isles and for Scotland but its long-term potential is global.”

npower renewables’ managing director Paul Cowling said: “Scotland has immense potential in marine energy and the opportunity to be a world leader in marine renewables.

“This consent is an important milestone in the development of wave power technology and is to be celebrated.

“However, commercial demonstration projects such as Siadar still face significant economic challenges.”

Matthew Seed, chief executive officer of Wavegen said: “The Siadar Wave Energy Project will be a major step in the development of the wave energy industry in Scotland and worldwide.

“Wavegen’s proven technology will now be employed at full commercial scale, paving the way for real cost efficiencies which will bring the cost of wave energy closer to that of more established technologies.”

Read Full Post »

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 sawmills and the like.

These inventors would disappear into the mists of history, and fossil fuel would instead provide an industrializing world with almost all its energy for the next two centuries. But Girard et fils were onto something, say a growing number of modern-day inventors, engineers, and researchers. The heave of waves and the tug of tides, they say, are about to begin playing a significant role in the world’s energy future.

In the first commercial scale signal of that, last October a trio of articulated, cylinder-shaped electricity generators began undulating in the waves off the coast of Portugal. The devices look like mechanical sea snakes. (In fact, their manufacturer, Scotland’s Pelamis Wave Power Ltd., takes its name from a mythical ancient Greek sea serpent.) Each Pelamis device consists of four independently hinged segments. The segments capture wave energy like the handle of an old fashioned water pump captures the energy of a human arm: as waves rock the segments to and fro, they pump a hydraulic fluid (biodegradable, in case of spills) powerfully through a turbine, spinning it to generate up to 750,000 watts of electricity per unit. Assuming the devices continue to perform well, Portuguese utility Energis expects to soon purchase another 28 more of the generators.

The completed “wave farm” would feed its collective power onto a single high voltage sea-floor cable, adding to the Portuguese grid about 21 megawatts of electricity. That’s enough to power about 15,000 homes.

In a world where a single major coal or nuclear plant can produce more than 1,000 megawatts of electricity, it’s a modest start. But from New York’s East River to the offshore waters of South Korea, a host of other projects are in earlier stages of testing. Some, like Pelamis, rely on the motion of waves. Others operate like underwater windmills, tapping the power of the tides.

Ocean-powered technologies are in their infancy, still technologically well behind such energy alternatives as wind and solar. Necessarily designed to operate in an inherently harsh environment, the technologies remain largely unproven and — unless subsidized by governments — expensive. (Portugal is heavily subsidizing the Pelamis project, with an eye to becoming a major European exporter of clean green power in the future.) Little is known about the effects that large wave or tide farms might have on marine ecosystems in general.

Despite the uncertainties, however, proponents say the potential advantages are too striking to ignore. Eight hundred times denser than air, moving water packs a huge energy wallop. Like solar and wind, power from moving seas is free and clean. But sea power is more predictable than either wind or solar. Waves begin forming thousands of miles from coastlines and days in advance; tides rise and fall as dependably as the cycles of the moon. That predictability makes it easier to match supply with demand.

Roger Bedard, who leads ocean energy research at the U.S. utility-funded Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, says there’s plenty of reason for optimism about the future of what he calls “hydrodynamic” power. Within a decade, he says, the U.S. could realistically meet as much as 10% of its electricity needs from hydrodynamic power. As a point of reference, that’s about half of the electricity the U.S. produces with nuclear power today. Although he acknowledges that initial sea-powered generation projects are going to be expensive, Bedard believes that as experience grows and economies of manufacturing scale kick in, hydrodynamic power will follow the same path toward falling costs and improving technologies as other alternatives.

“Look at wind,” he says. “A kilowatt hour from wind cost fifty cents in the 1980s. Now it’s about seven cents.” (That’s about the same as producing electricity with natural gas, and only about three cents more than coal, the cheapest — and dirtiest — U.S. energy choice. Any future tax on carbon emissions could narrow that gap even more, as would additional clean-power subsidies.)

For some nations, wave and tide power could pack an even bigger punch. Estimates suggest, for instance, that the choppy seas surrounding the United Kingdom could deliver as much as 25% of its electricity. British alternative energy analyst Thomas W. Thorpe believes that on a worldwide basis, waves alone could produce as much as 2,000 terawatt hours of electricity, as much as all the planet’s major hydroelectric plants generate today.

Although none are as far along as Pelamis, most competing wave-power technologies rely not on the undulations of mechanical serpents, but instead on the power captured by the vertical bobbing of large buoys in sea swells. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT), based in New Jersey, drives the generators in its PowerBuoy with a straightforward mechanical piston. A stationary section of the mostly submerged, 90-foot buoy is anchored to the ocean floor; a second section simply moves up and down with the movement of sea swells, driving pistons that in turn drive an electrical generator. The Archimedes Wave Swing, a buoy-based system developed by Scotland’s AWS Ocean Energy, harnesses the up-and-down energy of waves by pumping air to spin its turbines. Vancouver-based Finavera Renewables uses seawater as its turbine-driving hydraulic fluid.

Although Pelamis beat all of these companies out of the commercialization gate, OPT appears to be right behind, with plans to install North America’s first commercial-scale wave power array of buoys off the coast of Oregon as early as next year. That array — occupying one square-mile of ocean and, like other wave power installations, located far from shipping lanes — would initially produce 2 megawatts of power. OPT also announced last September an agreement to install a 1.4-megawatt array off the coast of Spain. An Australian subsidiary is in a joint venture to develop a 10-megawatt wave farm off the coast of Australia.

Meanwhile, Pelamis Wave Power plans to install more of its mechanical serpents — three megawatts of generating capacity off the coast of northwest Scotland, and another five-megawatt array off Britain’s Cornwall coast.

The Cornwall installation will be one of four wave power facilities plugged into a single, 20-megawatt underwater transformer at a site called “Wave Hub.” Essentially a giant, underwater version of a socket that each developer can plug into, Wave Hub — which will be connected by undersea cable to the land-based grid — was designed as a tryout site for competing technologies. OPT has won another of the four Wave Hub berths for its buoy-based system.

Other innovators are trying to harness the power of ocean or estuarine tides. Notably, in 2007, Virginia’s Verdant Power installed on the floor of New York’s East River six turbines that look, and function, much like stubby, submerged windmills, their blades — which are 16 feet in diameter — turning at a peak rate of 32 revolutions per minute. The East River is actually a salty and powerful tidal straight that connects Long Island Sound with the Atlantic Ocean. Although the “underwater windmills” began pumping out electricity immediately, the trial has been a halting one. The strong tides quickly broke apart the turbines’ first- (fiberglass and steel) and second- (aluminum and magnesium) generation blades, dislodging mounting bolts for good measure.

Undeterred, in September Verdant Power began testing new blades made of a stronger aluminum alloy. If it can overcome the equipment-durability problems, the company hopes to install as many as 300 of its turbines in the East River, enough to power 10,000 New York homes.

A scattering of similar prototype “underwater windmill” projects have been installed at tidal sites in Norway, Northern Ireland, and South Korea. (In addition, interest in moving into freshwater sites is growing. Verdant itself hopes to install its turbines on the St. Lawrence River. At least one other company, Free Flow Power of Massachusetts, has obtained Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permits to conduct preliminary studies on an array of sites on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis.)

The environmental benefits of hydrodynamic power seem obvious: no carbon dioxide or any other emissions associated with fossil-fuel-based generation. No oil spills or nuclear waste. And for those who object to wind farms for aesthetic reasons, low-profile wave farms are invisible from distant land; tidal windmill-style turbines operate submerged until raised for maintenance.

There are, however, environmental risks associated with these technologies.

New York state regulators required Verdant Power to monitor effects of their its turbines on fish and wildlife. So far, sensors show that fish and water birds are having no trouble avoiding the blades, which rotate at a relatively leisurely 32 maximum revolutions per minute. In fact the company’s sensors have shown that fish tend to seek shelter behind rocks around the channel’s banks and stay out of the central channel entirely when tides are strongest.

But a host of other questions about environment effects remain unanswered. Will high-voltage cables stretching across the sea from wave farms somehow harm marine ecosystems? Will arrays of hundreds of buoys or mechanical serpents interfere with ocean fish movement or whale migrations? What effect will soaking up large amounts of wave energy have on shoreline organisms and ecosystems?

“Environmental effects are the greatest questions right now,” EPRI’s Bedard says, “because there just aren’t any big hydrodynamic projects in the world.”

Projects will probably have to be limited in size and number to protect the environment, he says – that’s a big part of the reason he limits his “realistic” U.S. estimate to 10% of current generation capacity. But the only way to get definitive answers on environmental impact might be to run the actual experiment — that is, to begin building the water-powered facilities, and then monitor the environment for effects.

Bedard suggests that the way to get definitive answers will be to build carefully on a model like Verdant’s: “Start very small. Monitor carefully. Build it a little bigger and monitor some more. I’d like to see it developed in an adaptive way.”

Read Full Post »

$15 Million Ocean Energy Contest Launches in Scotland

JAMES OWEN, National Geographic News, December 2, 2008

The race is officially on for a U.S. $15 million (10 million Euro) prize for harnessing the power of the oceans.

The winning marine renewable energy innovation would provide a serious energy alternative to burning fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming.

Details of the Saltire Prize Challenge were announced Tuesday in Edinburgh by Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond.

The award will go to the team that “successfully demonstrates—in Scottish waters—the best commercially viable wave or tidal technology capable of providing electricity to thousands of homes.”

The winning team must supply this electricity using only the power of the sea for a continuous two-year period.

“It is Scotland’s energy challenge to the world—a challenge to the brightest and best minds worldwide to unleash their talents and push the frontiers of innovation in green marine energy,” Salmond said.

“The Saltire Prize has the potential to unlock Scotland’s vast marine energy wealth, putting our nation at the very forefront of the battle against climate change.”

The prize, named after the cross of St. Andrew on the Scottish national flag, was inspired by other innovation competitions such as the U.S. $10 million Ansari X Prize.

That contest led to the first private spacecraft launch in 2004.

“Saudi Arabia of Ocean Energy”

Scotland boasts a quarter of Europe’s tidal power potential, according to Salmond.

He described the Pentland Firth, a region between Scotland’s north coast and the Orkney Islands, as the “Saudi Arabia of renewable marine energy.”

Scotland aims to meet 50% of its electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020.

There’s also huge potential for ocean energy globally, said prize committee member Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs for the National Geographic Society. “It’s not going to be the sole solution to our energy needs,” Garcia said, but “this will be one of the important pieces of the puzzle.” The main purpose of the competition is to act as a catalyst for innovation, Garcia added.

“It’s both about making marine energy economically viable and being able to produce it in a sustained way on a large scale,” he said.

Wave and Tidal Power

The two major types of ocean energy are wave and tidal energy.

Wave energy technology involves floating modules with internal generators, which produce electricity as they twist about on the sea surface.

Tidal energy harnesses tidal currents with arrays of underwater turbines similar to those that propel wind farms.

Tidal ranks among the most reliable renewable energies because tides are highly predictable, said AbuBakr Bahaj, head of the University of Southampton’s Sustainable Energy Research Group in the U.K.

“But wave energy is driven by wind, which is notoriously difficult to predict,” he said.

Even so, wave power may have the higher electricity-generating potential.

In Britain, for instance, it’s estimated that wave power could potentially provide 20% of the country’s total electricity supply, against 5-10%for tidal power, Bahaj said.

The scientist says the main technical challenge is to create reliable power installations that can operate in difficult marine environments for five to ten years without maintenance.

“You also need to have multiple devices working together at each site,” he said.

Read Full Post »

US Wave Energy Having Temporary Setbacks

Platts/McGraw-Hill, August 2008

Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is looking to generate power from Scottish waters as well. Nasdaq-listed OPT reported July 28 that it had signed a berth agreement with the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland. OPT can, under the berth agreement, deploy and operate its unit as well as hook up to EMEC’s dedicated 2-MW subsea cable connected to the Scottish grid and will sell power to the grid up to the unit’s 2-MW capacity limit, using the EMEC berth for other deployments.

Across the Atlantic, wave energy development in the United States, another country looking to assume market leadership, suffered a temporary setback in late June 2008 when Finavera Renewables scuttled plans for a wave energy project off the Oregon coast to focus on developing the technology needed for other projects.

Finavera let preliminary permits granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) expire by not filing required reports. FERC cancelled Finavera’s preliminary permit on June 26 for the proposed 100-MW Coos Country project, saying the company had failed to file six-month progress reports on studies that the company was required to perform for the project to move forward. The preliminary permit allowed for further site assessment and so-called micro siting to determine the best location for the proposed wave park, and allowed studies on such topics as oceanographic conditions, marine mammal resources, shoreline conditions, and public safety. “We had to focus some of our resources on a couple [of] other high priority projects,” said Myke Clark, vice president of corporate development for Finavera.

These include a planned 2-MW wave energy initiative at Makah Bay, California, which has already secured a long-term power purchase contract in December 2007 with California utility Pacific Gas & Electric – the first commercial PPA for a wave project in North America. In developing the new technology, engineers are tackling such challenges as the intermittency of waves and how to produce electricity from new types of equipment cheaply enough to make it profitable, he said. “We’re definitely in an intensive phase right now in terms of this technology,” Clark said, adding that the company is cancelling the project because “we need to focus a bit more on the technology development.”

The marine energy industry in America faces policy as well as technology obstacles.

As FERC promotes development of hydrokinetic energy and companies seize opportunities, the agency has issued preliminary permits that allow environmental assessments and other studies to be performed – only to have its regulatory authority questioned by other federal agencies.

The US Department of the Interior in April 2008 asserted that FERC lacked the authority to issue leases for hydrokinetic projects on the Outer Continental Shelf and called on FERC to rehear its decisions to issue two preliminary permits for wave electricity projects being considered off the coast of California.

FERC issued a license to Finavera in December 2007 for a 1-MW wave energy project in Clallam County, Washington, but several parties sought rehearing of the decision, claiming FERC violated the Clean Water Act by issuing a license before the state ecology department had issued a water quality certificate and other state permits and authorizations. In a March 20 order FERC said the rehearing requests are moot since the state issued the necessary permits to Finavera in February 2008. FERC said that its initial order was a conditional license that did not authorize construction or installation of facilities and “expressly stated that no such authority would be granted until Finavera obtained all necessary authorizations.”

The US wave energy industry received a boost in late July 2008, though, when the US Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that regulates offshore energy development, said it intends to issue leases for thirteen alternative energy research projects in the federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf, including wave-energy projects off the California coast.

Read Full Post »

After Slow Start, European Wave Energy Surfs Forward

Platts/McGraw-Hill, August 2008

The burgeoning wave energy sector, which has endured ups and downs in recent years through initial testing of devices and uncertain government support, has recently set sail with new projects that have brought the industry to the brink of commercial development.

Portugal has established its role as a pioneer in wave energy development. Through the Aguçadoura project off the coast of northern Portugal, for instance, Enersis and its technology partner Scottish company Pelamis Wave Power (PWP) completed initial deployment of a 750-kW PWP wave-power unit, in August 2008, that generated electricity for the Portuguese grid, a source familiar with the initiative told Platts. The unit initially encountered difficulties with buoyancy, but these problems were solved, the source noted.

Though the system did not reach peak generation, it produced “hundreds of kilowatts,” he said, adding that it has since been disconnected to prove it can be returned to harbor for inspection of the component parts. “Everything is in very good order,” the source added. The Aguçadoura project partners are looking to have three 750-kW machines ready by September 2008. The goal is to have 30 machines deployed within a few years exceeding 20 MW – a venture that could expand “up to 500 MW,” the source said.

The Portuguese government is supporting the project by a feed-in tariff provided specifically for marine energy of about €0.23/kWh (US36¢/kWh), according to PWP’s Web site.

Portugal has established its role as a pioneer in wave energy development, with national institute Instituto Superior Técnico studying the technology since 1977. It boasts a 250-350-kilometer (150-220 mile) stretch of coast deemed suitable for wave-energy exploitation.

Other companies are looking to join the rush in Portugal for wave power, as developers Tecdragon, EDP and Eneólica take major steps in experimental development.

Additionally, Portuguese steel construction giant Martifer has created a joint marine-energy venture with Scottish Briggs, while Generg conducts research and planning for a wave energy plant.

EDP, Portugal’s largest power utility, is in the final stages of talks to install wave energy demonstration projects in Portugal. This deployment would follow the company’s participation in a review of more than 50 offshore wave energy technologies. Final site selection has begun on one EDP project known as the Breakwave, a system financed with €2 million ($3.1 million) of European Union funds that uses oscillating water column technology.

More advanced is Tecdragon, which aims to install in Portugal’s São Pedro de Moel pilot zone the first world’s 7-MW wave-energy plant. “Until now the start of installation was not possible due to adverse meteorological conditions,” explained Tecdragon Manager Borges da Cunha. The system would be based on Wave Dragon technology, which the company describes as a “floating, slack-moored energy converter” that meshes current offshore and hydropower turbine technology. Wave Dragon, the company said, is the only wave energy converter being developed that can be freely scaled up.

António Sarmento, director of Portugal’s Wave Energy Center, said that over the next 30 years Portugal could invest €5 billion ($7.8 billion) to install up to 5 GW of wave energy capacity along its western coast and along the coasts of its Madeira and Azores islands.

Another EU member is jockeying with Portugal to become the world leader in wave energy deployment – and to reap the anticipated benefits in new jobs and export earnings that the emerging marine energy industry is expected to generate.

The UK wave power sector moved ahead on July 30 when Jim Mather, minister of enterprise and energy for the Scottish regional government, commissioned a 100-kw Wavegen turbine. Scotland offers developers some of the world’s best wave-power levels.

The 100-kW turbine is “a major step forward,” the Scottish government said, for the Siadar Wave Energy Project, which is being developed by Npower Renewables, RWE Innogy’s UK operating company, on the Scottish isle of Lewis. Npower Renewables submitted planning applications in April for SWEP, which would generate up to 4 MW using 40 Wavegen 100-kW turbines.

If the Scottish government approves the plans, construction could start as early as 2009 and would take an estimated 18 months to complete.

Read Full Post »

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 “another step towards making Scotland the green energy capital of Europe.”

“The Clyde wind farm will represent a very important step in the development of renewable energy in Scotland and in meeting shared European targets,” Salmand said on Monday.

Clyde will be built in two phases, with commissioning of the first phase set for 2010 and completion of both phases scheduled for 2011.

The Scottish government has set a target of supplying a third of Scotland’s electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011 and half by 2020, said Salmond.

“Today’s announcement makes it virtually certain that the 2011 target will be met early and exceeded by the end of this Parliamentary term and represents a significant milestone on the way to achieving the 2020 target,” he said.

The Clyde wind farm application was submitted by Airtricity. It became part of Scottish and Southern Energy’s development portfolio when the company acquired Airtricity in February 2008.

The development is expected to require an investment of £600 million (US$1.195 billion). Scottish and Southern Energy, SSE, estimates that half of the total investment will be placed with Scottish companies.

SSE Chief Executive Ian Marchant said Monday, “Projects like Clyde are essential if Scotland and the UK are to have any hope of meeting legally-binding EU targets for renewable energy. Scottish Ministers aim to make Scotland the green energy capital of Europe, and giving the Clyde wind farm consent is evidence of a willingness to take decisions which are consistent with that ambition.”

The wind farm will be built in clusters of turbines on either side of the M74 motorway in southern Scotland.

Clyde will have a total capacity of up to 548 megawatts of power, more than double the biggest windfarm currently operating in Europe – the Maranchon wind farm in Guadalajara, Spain, which has a generating capacity of 208 megawatts.

Another large wind farm is under construction in Scotland but it will not come close to the generating capacity of Clyde.

Whitelee, on Eaglesham Moor, south of Glasgow, will consist of 140 wind turbines with a total capacity of 322 megawatts once it is completed next summer. It is expected to produce enough power for over 180,000 homes, more than 2% of the Scotland’s annual electricity needs, and will hold the title of largest wind farm in Europe until Clyde is completed in 2011.

“Clyde is clearly going to be a major project, with significant economic opportunities for the local community,” said SSE’s Marchant. During construction, the Clyde project is expected to create 200 jobs, with some 30 staffers employed when the wind farm is fully operational, he said.

“Scotland has a clear, competitive advantage in developing clean, green energy sources such as wind, wave and tidal power,” said Salmand. “We have put renewable energy at the heart of our vision of increasing sustainable, economic growth.”

Current installed renewables capacity in Scotland totals 2,800 megawatts, while installed nuclear generating capacity is 2,090 megawatts.

“Installed renewables capacity is already greater than nuclear capacity. But this announcement demonstrates that we are only at the start of the renewables revolution in Scotland,” the first minister said.

“Combined with the crucial announcement of a new biomass plant in Fife on Friday, the Clyde declaration today makes this weekend one of the biggest advances ever in energy technology in Scotland,” Salmand said.

On Friday, the first minister visited the future site of the 45 megawatt combined heat and power biomass plant in Markinch, Glenrothes, where he met with representatives from energy supplier RWE npower Cogen and papermaker firm Tullis Russell.

The joint venture will be built and operated by npower Cogen, the cogeneration division of RWE npower, a UK developer of industrial combined heat and power, often called cogeneration.

It will provide Tullis Russell with steam and electricity, reducing the papermill’s emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by around 250,000 metric tonnes each year.

Approval of the Clyde wind farm means that the total installed capacity of renewable power plants either built or consented and under construction will be 4.55 gigawatts – just 450 megawatts short of the five gigawatts needed to reach the Scottish government’s interim target of generating 31 percent of Scotland’s electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011.

The Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit is currently processing 37 renewable project applications – 28 wind farms, eight hydropower projects and one wave power project.

Read Full Post »

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 this year. The west coast of Scotland and the North and North East coast of Ireland have a huge potential to harness both wind and wave power. The study will investigate the possibility of establishing a grid infrastructure between the two locations which would allow for an offshore transmission network. This would attract commercial investors and the area could become one of the key supply chains of renewable energy for Scotland and the UK.

Scotland has already committed to an ambitious target of sourcing 50% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020 and this study could pave the way to a successful achievement of this goal. Tim Mather, Scotland’s Energy Minister said “To realise the potential of the huge wind, wave and tidal resources at our disposal, we need to examine the longer term development of our grid infrastructure. Scotland, we believe has never been in better shape to become the green energy capital of Europe and in turn, a renewables powerhouse”

The Renewable Energy Centre said it was a positive move forward for the renewable energy industry and the grid infrastructure. The Centre has already highlighted the issues many investors are experiencing with delays because of grid access and transmission and this study shows that efforts are being made to create a grid network which will support the future of the UK’s energy supply.

The Energy Minister for Northern Ireland agreed saying “We have a vast wealth of free natural resources that we can harness to provide ourselves with a clean and sustainable source of energy”

The Renewable Energy Centre said that more effort to upgrade and prepare the national grid could not come soon enough and that if the UK was to continue to flourish in the wind, wave and tidal industry improvements needed to be planned and implemented without delay.

Richard Simmons Managing Director at The Renewable Energy Centre said “The renewable industry is forging ahead in order to ensure the UK’s future energy supply but as usual our infrastructure is sadly lacking. This has been known for many years and still upgrades and necessary works to support this new industry are hampering projects all over the UK. The Beauly Denny line which would open up the east coast of Scotland has been in planning application since 2005 and is still nowhere near being finalised. Much of the national grid will need to be upgraded in the next 5 to 10 years but at this rate it will seriously affect the progress of the renewable energy industry.”

The Renewable Energy Centre stated that the government and Ofgem needed to work together and formulate a strategic and definite plan of development in order to maintain the momentum gathering the renewables industry. It said that now was the time for the government to act and move the UK forward in order to not only achieve its European Union targets but surpass them.

Read Full Post »

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 to combine knowledge and expertise in marine energy. They aim to drive forward research so that the potential of renewable energy from waves and tides can be realised. EquiMar will be officially launched at the World Renewable Energy Conference (WREC) in Glasgow on July 22, 2008.

Professor Smith is the Scottish and Southern Energy Associate Professor in renewable energy. He leads the renewable energy group, which is part of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources on the University of Exeter’s Cornwall Campus and says: “The South West of England has a strong commitment to increasing its renewable energy generation as demonstrated by the proposed Wave Hub project off the North Cornwall Coast. Marine Renewable Energy, both wave and tidal, has the potential to provide a significant contribution to the UK’s “green energy” and to the EU target for reduction in carbon emissions. Surrounded by sea, the South West is clearly in a strong position to contribute to this. One of the main barriers to realising the potential is that we still don’t have enough information on the amount of energy that can be realistically extracted from the devices available. EquiMar seeks to produce guidelines that will allow fair evaluation of the potential of the many different technologies. EquiMar has the potential to guide the way forward from demonstration projects like the Wave Hub to the next stage of fully commercial projects. We must act now to ensure that marine renewable can achieve the undoubted potential and contribution to the UK energy mix.”

According to the Dr David Ingram, the Scottish scientist launching EquiMar, marine energy has 10 years to prove itself as a viable technology or risk being eclipsed by other energy sources. Dr Ingram will tell delegates at the WREC conference in Glasgow that time is running out for marine solutions to the world’s energy crisis unless scientists and environmentalists work together.

Dr David Ingram of the University of Edinburgh is coordinator of the European Commission funded project, a €5.5 million programme linking European top research centres and leading device developers to examine the potential of, and identify the barriers to establishing, a marine energy industry. The project has been given three years support by the European Commission to come up with templates to identify viable wave and tidal energy devices and optimal locations so marine energy can be developed commercially and to help to meet the ambitious supply targets set by governments for renewable energy.

According to Dr Ingram: “Every day scientists, inventors and keen amateurs are applying for grants to test their prototypes. Some are promising – many will never work outside the limited test environment of the bath or kitchen sink. Governments need yardsticks by which they can measure the likely success of marine energy systems before backing them. At present we know more about the surface of the moon than parts of the sea bed – both environments demand scientific precision and the toughest possible equipment. Improved national and European funding will help resolve these problems and support the pioneering developers, to progress from testing devices to placing them in the open ocean environment. Good policies are as important as good science at this stage of Ocean Energy development.”

The EquiMar (“Equitable Testing and Evaluation of Marine Energy Devices in terms of Performance, Cost and Environmental Impact”) project is one of two projects funded in the first round of Framework Programme 7, by the European Commission. EquiMar is a €5.5M project, involving 23 partners from 11 different countries, coordinated by the University of Edinburgh including major developers, universities, test sites, research laboratories, a certification agency, a utility and a journalist, bringing together international expertise across a wide range of disciplines. The project will run for three years from mid April 2008. EquiMar’s primary aim is to deliver guidelines so funding agencies, policy makers and investors can fairly judge different technologies and sites.

Read Full Post »

Scottish Energy Firms to Bring Hydro Power to the People

SEVERIN CARRELL, The Guardian, June 27, 2008

Scotland is planning a renewable energy revolution that would trump the ambitious strategy announced yesterday in London by Gordon Brown – and without building any nuclear power stations.

Brown’s UK-wide strategy sets out how the nation as a whole could reach a target of 30-35% of electricity being generated from renewables by 2020. But ministers in the devolved government in Edinburgh said Scotland will reach this target within three years, and by 2020 would be at 50%.

To help achieve this, more than 40 years since the last big hydroelectric dams flooded glens across the Highlands, Scottish ministers, power companies and land owners plan a new wave of hydro schemes, and claim it will provide a rich source of cheap, green power.

This summer, the government-sponsored Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland is expected to call for scores of hydroelectricity schemes to be built, ranging from dams in northern glens to up to 100 projects harnessing power from rivers.

Next spring, the UK’s main hydroelectricity company, Scottish and Southern Energy, will switch on one of the largest green power plants being built in the UK – a 200MW hydro station buried in mountains at Glendoe near Loch Ness. Serviced by 10 miles of underground tunnels and a large dam, Glendoe will produce enough electricity to supply every house in Glasgow.

Four companies have been surveying the Highlands to find sites for other large hydro schemes, said Tom Douglas, a leading consultant with the engineers Mott MacDonald, and have been advised that up to a dozen hydropower stations could be built.

Separately, Scottish and Southern said it had identified three new sites in the Highlands able to generate up to 200MW in total, and is drafting plans for another new dam after Glendoe.

The hydropower will be sorely needed. Alan Ervine, professor of water engineering at Glasgow University, said rejecting new nuclear stations left ministers with a significant “black hole” to fill. Unlike English ministers, an SNP administration would not replace Hunterston B and Torness power stations once they close.

In 2006, the pair generated 26% of the 54 gigawatts of electricity Scotland produced, but SNP ministers will need to replace that, as well as hitting their 50% “green” power target, by 2020.

At present 12% of Scotland’s electricity is generated by the 70 or so existing hydroelectric dams.

Ervine believes this could nearly double, with dams capable of lasting for 100 years. “Hydro is a well-known technology,” he said. “It’s something we know how to do; we can power it up and do it effectively in Scotland, compared to the risk-taking which is involved with wind, wave and tidal turbines.”

Despite the intention to expand, power from the growing number of large new onshore windfarms will soon outstrip hydro. On Tuesday, ministers authorised two large windfarms able to supply 117,000 homes.

But in many areas of the Highlands, such as Perthshire, hydro is being embraced by anti-windfarm campaigners who are angry at the march of onshore wind turbines across the countryside.

Richard Barclay, a farmer and landowner in Perthshire, is installing a 1.4MW mini-hydro station on his local river. Enough to supply about 1,000 houses in nearby Kinloch Rannoch, it is a “run of river” scheme where the power plant is buried, using river water diverted via a weir and underground pipes, returning it downstream.

“It will fit very well into our local environment,” he said.

“Windfarms are much more controversial. Their visual impact is huge and the run of river scheme has no visual impact essentially because it’s underground. I haven’t met anybody who has a problem with mini-hydro.”

But other tensions are emerging. Strict European Union water quality and environment regulations make it more difficult to build hydroelectric schemes because of the potential damage to fish stocks, river habitats and water sports. But Martin Marsden, head of water policy at the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, which authorises hydro stations, said: “We recognise climate change is the biggest threat to the world, and we’ve no intention of undermining hydro.”

Jason Ormiston, chief executive of the Scottish Renewables Forum, said it was “entirely false” for anti-wind campaigners to believe that hydropower can replace onshore wind. “We have to be able to develop good projects whatever the technology as quickly as possible. We need hydro, we need wind, we need biomass, we will hopefully have wave and tidal,” he said.

Jim Mather, the Scottish energy minister, has described himself as “desperately enthusiastic” about hydro as part of a mix of energy sources. He said: “This is us as systems thinkers: to optimise the entire system called Scotland and not just maximise any one source of supply.

“We’re interested in developing a diverse renewable mix and Scotland has won the lottery of life in terms of on-shore wind, offshore wind, wave, solar, biomass, clean coal technologies, hydro and carbon storage.”

Read Full Post »

The Coming Wave

The Economist, June 5, 2008

You only have to look at waves pounding a beach, inexorably wearing cliffs into rubble and pounding stones into sand, to appreciate the power of the ocean. As soaring oil prices and concern over climate change give added urgency to the search for new, renewable sources of energy, the sea is an obvious place to look. In theory the world’s electricity needs could be met with just a tiny fraction of the energy sloshing around in the oceans.

Alas, harnessing it has proved to be unexpectedly difficult. In recent years wind farms have sprouted on plains and hilltops, and solar panels have been sprinkled across rooftops and deserts. But where the technology of wind and solar power is established and steadily improving, that of wave power is still in its infancy. The world had to wait until October 2007 for the first commercial wave farm, consisting of three snakelike tubes undulating with the Atlantic swell off the coast of Portugal.

In December Pacific Gas & Electric, an American utility, signed an agreement to buy electricity from a wave farm that is to be built off the coast of California and is due to open in 2012. Across the world many other wave-power schemes are on the drawing board. The story of wave power, however, has been one of trials and tests followed by disappointment and delays. Of the many devices developed to capture wave energy, none has ever been deployed on a large scale. Given wave power’s potential, why has it been so hard to get the technology to work—and may things now be about to change?

The first patents for wave-power devices were issued in the 18th century. But nothing much happened until the mid-1970s, when the oil crisis inspired Stephen Salter, an engineer at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, to develop a wave generator known as Salter’s Duck. His design contained curved, floating canisters, each the size of a house, that would be strung together and then tethered to the ocean floor. As the canisters, known as Ducks, were tossed about by the waves, each one would rock back and forth. Hydraulics would convert the rocking motion to rotational motion, which would in turn drive a generator. A single Duck was calculated to be capable of generating 6 megawatts (MW) of electricity—enough to power around 4,000 homes. The plan was to install them in groups of several dozen.

Initial estimates put the cost of generating electricity in this way at nearly $1 per kilowatt hour (kWh), far more than nuclear power, the most expensive electricity at the time. But as Dr Salter and his team improved their design, they managed to bring the cost-per-kWh down to the cost of nuclear power. Even so, the research programme was shut down by the British government in 1982. The reasons for this were not made public, but it is widely believed to have happened after lobbying by the nuclear industry. In testimony to a House of Lords committee in 1988, Dr Salter said that an accurate evaluation of the potential of new energy sources would be possible only when “the control of renewable energy projects is completely removed from nuclear influences.”

Salter’s Duck never took to the seas, but it sparked interest in the idea of wave power and eventually helped to inspire other designs. One example is the Pelamis device, designed by some of Dr Salter’s former students, who now work at Pelamis Wave Power, a firm based in Scotland. Three such devices, each capable of generating up to 750kW, have been deployed off the coast of Portugal, and dozens more are due to be installed by 2009. There are also plans for installations off Orkney in Scotland and Cornwall in England.

As waves travel along the 140-metre length of the snakelike Pelamis, its hinged joints bend both up and down, and from side to side. This causes hydraulic rams at the joints to pump hydraulic fluid through turbines, turning generators to produce electricity. Pelamis generators present only a small cross-section to incoming waves, and absorb less and less energy as the waves get bigger. This might seem odd, but most of the time the devices will not be operating in stormy seas—and when a storm does occur, their survival is more important than their power output.

Oh Buoy

The Aquabuoy, designed by Finavera Renewables of Vancouver, takes a different approach. (This is the device that Pacific Gas & Electric hopes to deploy off the California coast.) Each Aquabuoy is a tube, 25-metres long, that floats vertically in the water and is tethered to the sea floor. Its up-and-down bobbing motion is used to pressurise water stored in the tube below the surface. Once the pressure reaches a certain level, the water is released, spinning a turbine and generating electricity.

The design is deliberately simple, with few moving parts. In theory, at least, there is very little to go wrong. But a prototype device failed last year when it sprang a leak and its bilge-pump malfunctioned, causing it to sink just as it was due to be collected at the end of a trial. Finavera has not released the results of the trial, which was intended to measure the Aquabuoy’s power output, among other things. The company has said, however, that Aquabuoy will be profitable only if each device can generate at least 250kW, and that it has yet to reach this threshold.

Similar bobbing buoys are also being worked on by AWS Ocean Energy, based in Scotland, and Ocean Power Technologies, based in Pennington, New Jersey, among others. The AWS design is unusual because the buoys are entirely submerged; the Ocean Power device, called the PowerBuoy, is being tested off the coast of Spain by Iberdrola, a Spanish utility.

The Oyster, a wave-power device from Aquamarine Power, another Scottish firm, works in an entirely different way. It is an oscillating metal flap, 12 metres tall and 18 metres wide, installed close to shore. As the waves roll over it, the flap flexes backwards and forwards. This motion drives pistons that pump seawater at high pressure through a pipe to a hydroelectric generator. The generator is onshore, and can be connected to lots of Oyster devices, each of which is expected to generate up to 600kW. The idea is to make the parts that go in the sea simple and robust, and to keep the complicated and delicate bits out of the water. Testing of a prototype off the Orkney coast is due to start this summer.

The logical conclusion of this is to put everything onshore—and that is the idea behind the Limpet. It is the work of Wavegen, a Scottish firm which is a subsidiary of Voith Siemens Hydro, a German hydropower firm. A prototype has been in action on the island of Islay, off the Scottish coast, since 2000. The Limpet is a chamber that sits on the shoreline. The bottom of the chamber is open to the sea, and on top is a turbine that always spins in the same direction, regardless of the direction of the airflow through it.

As waves slam into the shore, water is pushed into the chamber and this in turn displaces the air, driving it through the turbine. As the water recedes, air is sucked back into the chamber, driving the same turbine again. The Limpet on Islay has three chambers which generate an average of 100kW between them, but larger devices could potentially generate three times this amount, according to Wavegen. Limpets may be built into harbour breakwaters in Scotland and Spain.

Dozens of wave-energy technologies are being developed around the world: ideas, in other words, are not what has held the field back. So what has? Tom Thorpe of Oxford Oceanics, a consultancy, blames several overlapping causes. For a start, wave energy has lagged behind wind and solar, because the technology is much younger and still faces some big technical obstacles. “This is a completely new energy technology, whereas wind and photovoltaics have been around for a long time—so they have been developed, rather than invented,” says Mr Thorpe.

The British government’s decision to shut its wave-energy research programme, which had been the world’s biggest during the 1970s, set the field back nearly two decades. Since Britain is particularly well placed to exploit wave energy (which is why so many wave-energy companies come from there), its decision not to pursue the technology affected wave-energy research everywhere, says Mr Thorpe. “If we couldn’t do it, who could?” he says.

Once interest in wave power revived earlier this decade, practical problems arose. A recurring problem, ironically enough, is that new devices underestimate the power of the sea, and are unable to withstand its assault. Installing wave-energy devices is also expensive; special vessels are needed to tow equipment out to sea, and it can be difficult to get hold of them. “Vessels that could potentially do the job are all booked up by companies collecting offshore oil,” says Trevor Whittaker, an engineer at Queen’s University in Belfast who has been part of both the Limpet and Oyster projects. “Wave-generator installation is forced to compete with the high prices the oil industry can pay.”

Another practical problem is the lack of infrastructure to connect wave-energy generators to the power grid. The cost of establishing this infrastructure makes small-scale wave-energy generation and testing unfeasible; but large-scale projects are hugely expensive. One way around this is to build a “Wave Hub”, like the one due to be installed off the coast of Cornwall in 2010 that will provide infrastructure to connect up wave-energy arrays for testing.

Expect Flotations

But at last there are signs of change. Big utilities are taking the technology seriously, and are teaming up with wave-energy companies. Venture-capitalists are piling in too, as they look for new opportunities. Several wave-energy companies are thought to be planning stockmarket flotations in the coming months. Indeed, such is investors’ enthusiasm that Mr Thorpe worries that things might have gone too far. A big failure could tarnish the whole field, just as its prospects look more promising than ever.

Whether one wave-energy device will dominate, or different devices will suit different conditions, remains to be seen. But wave energy’s fortunes have changed. “We have to be prepared for some spectacular failures,” says Mr Thorpe, “but equally some spectacular successes.”

Read Full Post »

Green Giants: The World’s Biggest Clean Energy Projects

WILLIAM PENTLAND, Forbes.com, April 30, 2008

The Middle East is hardly known as the capital of clean energy, but Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are trying to change that.

A few weeks ago, 100-foot-wide propellers began turning on the recently completed World Trade Center building, making Bahrain home to the world’s first building-integrated wind turbine skyscraper. The building includes two sail-shaped towers that climb 54 floors above the beachfront site. Three small bridges link the towers, with a massive wind turbine hanging from each. The towers funnel the ocean winds into the turbines, which generate more than 10% of the energy used by the building.

As climate change and renewable-energy policies level the playing field in the energy industry, alternative-energy companies are racing to assure investors, policymakers and the public that they can scale to meet the needs of energy-starved consumers. During the last few years, a clutch of clean energy projects have emerged on a scale never seen before. Forbes.com has identified the biggest and boldest projects among them.

We surveyed the clean energy landscape for new and recently completed projects in solar, wind, geothermal and wave energy that produced the most grid-connected electricity. Forbes.com also identified the green government initiative and green building project with the highest estimated dollar value. The results are different from what most people would expect.

Bahrain isn’t the only desert blooming green this year. California’s Mojave Desert is rapidly filling up with solar-thermal power plants, courtesy of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli solar-thermal company, recently agreed to supply Pacific Gas & Electric with 553 megawatts of solar thermal energy for 25 years, starting in 2009.

Like other companies, PG&E is racing to meet California’s 20% renewable energy requirement by 2010. As a result, Solel plans to string 1.2 million mirrors in large arrays over nine square miles of California’s southeastern desert. The plant will use parabolic 3- by 4-foot mirrors developed by Solel to convert the sun’s heat into steam that powers turbines.

Deserts aren’t the only place being developed–quite a few projects are taking place in the ocean.

Scotland boasts roughly 25% of the entire European Union’s tidal power potential and 10% of its wave energy potential. In an effort to tap those resources, Scottish Power, a wave-energy company based in Scotland, plans to build the world’s largest wave-energy farm off the coast of Orkney Island. If wave energy proves as profitable as many say, Scotland could produce more than 1,300 megawatts by 2020, enough to power a city the size of Seattle, according to some estimates.

Despite Scotland’s ambitious foray into wave energy, the Orkney project is small change compared with what’s happening off the coast on the opposite end of the island.

England is the windiest country in the European Union. Slightly smaller than Louisiana, the island nation is already hard-pressed for space, which wind farms need a whole heap of to make a difference. As a result, England has done what England has always done–head to sea.

The London Array project plans to erect a constellation of more than 340 wind turbines in the outer Thames Estuary, roughly seven miles off the Kent Coast. When construction ends, London Array will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm, generating more electricity than Denmark’s Middelgrunden offshore wind farm, which is the largest offshore farm operational today.

Although London Array is hard to beat on the big scale, that’s hardly enough to stop a Texas oil tycoon like T. Boone Pickens from trying. Nothing shows the continuity between Big Oil and Big Green quite like Pickens, the oilfield roughneck turned Texas oil tycoon who plans to build the world’s largest wind power farm.

Pickens has invested heavily in a planned wind power farm that will stretch across four counties in the Texas panhandle near Amarillo. The farm’s 2,700 wind turbines will be able to power 1 million homes when construction ends.

Read Full Post »

Scottish Government Nixes Lewis Wind Farm

LESTER HAINES, The Register, April 21, 2008

The Scottish Government has turned down an application to build a 181-turbine wind farm on the Isle of Lewis, the BBC reports.

The decision confirms a report by the BBC’s Gaelic news service Radio nan Gaidheal back in January, which predicted a red light for the £500m project, proposed by Lewis Wind Power (LWP).

Although the plan was approved in February 2007 by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) members, who voted 18 to eight in favour, and attracted local business support, 11,000 objections nudged the Scottish Government to decide the scheme “did not comply with European law protecting sensitive environments”.

Campaigners had warned of “irreversible damage” to one of the country’s “most important wetland sites”. Scottish ministers agreed, and declared the farm “would have a serious impact on the Lewis Peatlands Special Protection Area, which is designated under the European Commission (EC) Birds Directive and protected under the EC Habitats Directive”.

Energy Minister Jim Mather confirmed: “The Lewis Wind Farm would have significant adverse impacts on the Lewis Peatlands Special Protection Area, which is designated due to its high value for rare and endangered birds. This decision does not mean that there cannot be onshore wind farms in the Western Isles.

“I strongly believe the vast renewables potential needs to be exploited to ensure that the opportunities and benefits of new development can be shared across the country in an equitable fashion.”

LWP, which insisted the development would create more than 400 jobs, described itself as “bitterly disappointed” with the knock-back. It said in a statement: “The local authority and all of Scotland’s major business organisations fully recognised the huge benefits that this proposal would have delivered.

“The economic benefits included the creation of around 400 local jobs, 680 jobs across Scotland, during the construction process, as well as providing much needed investment to the Arnish Yard* to make it a global competitor for other projects.”

It added: “The wind farm would have contributed 650MW of renewable energy to help the fight against climate change and paved the way for an interconnector to the mainland to encourage more investment in other renewable technologies. “Sadly all of this has been lost because of the government decision which, we believe, represents a huge missed opportunity.”

LWP concluded it would be “considering the Government’s response in detail before deciding on our next move”.

Read Full Post »

DeltaStream Tidal Turbines in Welsh Waters

Renewable Energy Development Blog, April 23, 2008

The latest Tidal Energy venture is a demonstration project in Welsh waters backed by renewable energy developer Eco2, investing £150,000 into Tidal Energy Limited as the company installs DeltaStream. The finance needed by Tidal Energy Limited, which was formerly known as Tidal Hydraulic Generators, will fund the prototype phase of this 12 month operation, reaching £6 million. Eco2 will fund £1 million which has been matched by the Carbon Connections Development Fund.

DeltaStream is tidal stream technology, distinct from other devices as it does not require fixing to the sea bed. Each DeltaStream energy device is a 1.2MW capacity generator made up of three turbines in a triangular frame. The frame itself is comparatvely light which will positioning with a minimum of effort. To prevent the DeltaStream from being shifted by the currents it will require some form of ballasting.

The DeltaStream is modular as the components can be exchanged for maintenance or repair. This makes the DeltaStream energy device considerably cheaper to maintain than comparable tidal systems.

Tidal Energy Limited plans to begin manufacturing the device later in 2008 with a view to beginning full-scale installation in 2009.

David Williams, Chief Executive of Eco2, said: “This is an important development as it literally takes renewable power generation out of sight, minimising environmental impact, yet harnessing the largely untapped energy resources of the oceans, far more cost effectively than before. We believe this is the most aesthetic and energy efficient solution yet to meeting EU renewable energy targets.”

More information can be found by reading the Carbon Connection DeltaStream Case Study.

Some more Tidal Energy turbines in development around the world

SeaGen at Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland
Tocardo Turbines at Pentland Firth, Scotland
Rotech Tidal Turbines at Wando Hoenggan Waterway, South Korea
Free Flow Turbines at St Lawrence River, Canada

Read Full Post »

Scotland’s Pentland Firth Tidal Energy Project

RenewableEnergyDev.com, April 8, 2008

A Dutch tidal device developer has recognised the potential in the Scottish waters and is planning a new tidal energy power plant in the Pentland Firth, hoping to begin development as early as the end of 2008.

Tocardo has established a subsidiary company called Tocardo Tidal Energy with the plan to set up production, assembly and office facilities in Wick Harbour. The major goal is to construct a 10MW offshore tidal energy plant which has tentatively been christened the Pentland Firth Tidal Energy Park. This first foray harnessing tidal energy in the Pentland Firth is expected to be a mere drop in the ocean, as it were, for future tidal power projects in the region.

The project plans to use the Tocardo technology which is a twin-bladed horizontal axis turbine with direct drive generator and fixed pitch blades. The rotor blades on the turbines will be 10m in diameter and will be capable of generating 650kW each.

A pre-feasibility study has been prepared by Tocardo BV Tidal Energy to identify the tasks required for a Tidal Master Plan Study. The Tidal Master Plan Study will be the feasibility study to determine the best way forward towards accelerated development of the tidal energy potential of the Pentland Firth.

An objective has been set in place by the Scottish Government to harness 1300MW of tidal energy in the Pentland Firth by 2020.

Read Full Post »

Atlantic Waves to Power Island Homes

JOHN ROSS, The Scotsman, April 24, 2008

A scheme designed to harness the power of the Atlantic to supply electricity to hundreds of homes was unveiled yesterday.

Plans were submitted for a wave-power station on Lewis, one of the first in the world and seen as a model for similar projects in the UK and abroad.

The Siadar Wave Energy Project (Swep) is a collaboration between Npower Renewables and Inverness-based technology company Wavegen. It plans to use waves in Siadar Bay to generate up to 4 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply the average annual needs of 1,500 homes in Lewis and Harris, a fifth of the population.

Swep would be the first project to operate under the Scottish Government’s Marine Supply Obligation (MSO), put in place to promote the development of the first marine-energy power stations.

If approved by ministers, building work could start next year and take about 18 months to complete, creating up to 50 construction jobs.

The scheme involves building a new breakwater about 350 metres from the shore which would house the Wavegen turbines. As well as providing renewable electricity, it could provide shelter and allow the development of a fairweather harbour facility for small commercial and leisure craft.

Bill Langley, the marine development manager for Npower Renewables, said: “We believe this is a new chapter in the UK’s search for a sustainable future.

“We remain convinced that the Swep could be the gateway to harnessing the best wave resource in the UK. This pilot scheme could be the stepping stone to realising large-scale wave-energy projects around the UK and worldwide.”

Matthew Seed, chief executive of Wavegen, said the project builds on the technology developed at the Limpet plant on Islay, which has been grid-connected since 2000 and is due to be installed in a project in Spain’s Basque country.

He added: “Wavegen has identified further UK locations for this type of plant, and we will be working with Npower Renewables to start making wave energy a real contributor to government renewable-energy targets.”

The project dates from June 2006 when a partnership between Npower Renewables and Wavegen was announced to investigate the potential for a new wave-power scheme at Siadar.

Swep is based on the “oscillating water column” (OWC) principle, which sees ocean waves moving air in and out of chambers in a breakwater, which in turn drives a turbine to generate electricity.

It is estimated that marine energy could eventually supply up to 10 per cent of the world’s electricity needs.

Scotland has massive potential to be a major generator of wave power. The UK is home to 47 per cent of Europe’s wave resource, with 10 per of that total located north of the Border.

Read Full Post »

RWE Innogy Planning Wave Energy Off Scotland

La Société, April 24, 2008

RWE Innogy has submitted a planning application to the relevant authorities for one of the world’s first wave power stations off the Scottish coast. The pilot plant with an output of four megawatts will be installed in Siadar Bay on the Isle of Lewis. If everything goes to plan, construction work could begin in 2009.

“We have taken an important step forward in our plans to build one of the world’s first commercial-scale wave power stations. We are convinced that this technology has a great potential to generate power around Europe’s coast”, explains Kevin McCullough, COO of RWE Innogy. The project is being coordinated by the British RWE Innogy subsidiary npower renewables, who are promoting the development of the wave power station together with the Scottish technology company Wavegen.

Unlike a tidal power station, this does not exploit the difference in height between ebb tide and flood tide but rather the constant kinetic energy of waves. The plan is to build a breakwater system according to the OWC (oscillating water column) principle on the open sea. The breaking waves force water into an opening below water level, which is then sucked out again when the waves retreat. This constant rise and fall sets a column of water trapped in several chambers in motion. The air mass above water is thus alternately compressed and sucked in, powering a turbine that generates electricity. The pilot plant’s output will be enough to supply around 1,500 homes with electricity.

RWE Innogy had already announced a cooperation with the British firm of Marine Current Turbines to plan and build one of the world’s first tidal stream power stations off the coast of Anglesey in North Wales in February. This project will use the natural ocean and tidal currents to generate power through underwater rotors. The system will have an output of around 10.5 megawatts and is scheduled to go into operation in 2012.

RWE Innogy, the company for renewable energies in the RWE Group, is planning to invest an average of one billion euros each year to extend its regenerative power generation business. The main focus will be on wind, water and biomass projects throughout Europe. RWE Innogy will expand its installed power station output based on renewable energies to 4,500 megawatts by the year 2012.

Read Full Post »

ScottishPower Renewables Plans To Extend Europe’s Largest On-Shore Windfarm

ScottishPower Renewables, April 25, 2008

ScottishPower Renewables has submitted a Section 36 application to the Scottish Government for an extension of Whitelee Windfarm on Eaglesham Moor by a further 36 turbines – developing the site beyond the 140 turbines that are currently being constructed as part of Europe’s largest on-shore windfarm project.

If approved, the new turbines will increase the output of clean green energy from Whitelee by up to a maximum of 130 megawatts – enough on its own to power up to 73,000 homes – taking the total output from the windfarm up to 452MW.

Simon Christian, Project Director at ScottishPower Renewables, said: “Whitelee is an excellent location for a windfarm development and we believe that there is scope to extend what is already an ambitious renewable energy project. Not only is it sited exceptionally well for good wind conditions, it is also close to grid connections, transport links and will be able to directly serve the nearby large population centres of west central Scotland.

A full consultation process is now underway, which will involve presenting the development plans to local community groups and engaging statutory consultees such as Scottish Natural Heritage and the RSPB.

Under Scottish Government guidelines, the process for considering the application should take approximately nine months, with a decision therefore expected to be made early next year.

There are currently 22 wind turbines at Whitelee already connected to the grid, generating enough green energy to power over 30,000 homes. The initial 140 turbine construction phase of the project is scheduled for completion in Summer 2009. ScottishPower Renewables also recently announced plans for a multi-million pounds Visitor Centre at Whitelee, which will also open in Summer 2009. All 36 turbines on the extension site fall in the East Ayrshire Council administrative area.

Read Full Post »

Giant British Wind Farm Plans Blown Away Due to Environmental Concerns

Agence France-Presse, April 22, 2008

The Scottish government has rejected plans to build one of Europe’s biggest onshore wind farms due what it said was the “significant adverse impacts” on the local environment.

Ministers in Edinburgh decided that the 500-million-pound (one-billion-dollar, 625-million-euro) project would have threatened rare and endangered bird populations and damaged peatland on the remote Isle of Lewis, northwest of the Scottish mainland.

The proposals were turned down on the grounds that they did not comply with European Union law protecting sensitive environments.

The Scottish government has a number of powers separate from the British government in London, including planning and environment policy.

Lewis Wind Power, a consortium of AMEC and British Energy, had proposed constructing 181 turbines, with a capacity of 651.6 megawatts — enough to meet the average domestic electricity requirement of more than 20 percent of Scotland’s population.

“The Lewis wind farm would have significant adverse impacts on the Lewis Peatlands Special Protection Area, which is designated due to its high value for rare and endangered birds,” said Scottish Energy Minister Jim Mather.

“This decision does not mean that there cannot be onshore wind farms in the Western Isles. That’s why we will urgently carry out work on how to develop renewable energy in the Western Isles, in harmony with its outstanding natural heritage.”

The Lewis peatlands are regarded as one of the most extensive and intact such areas on Earth.

Golden eagle, merlin, red throated diver, black throated diver, golden plover, dunlin and greenshank populations in the area are subject to special protection under a European birds directive.

Stuart Housden, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland called it Tuesday “an extremely commendable decision” that was “absolutely right for Scotland”.

Lewis Wind Power said it was “bitterly disappointed” and would consider the government’s verdict in detail before deciding their “next move”.

Read Full Post »

$20-Million Prize for Renewable Ocean Energy Announced

CHRISTINE DELL’AMORE, National Geographic News, April 2, 2008

Scotland will offer the world’s largest prize to date for spurring advances in marine renewable energy, the country’s head of state announced today.

The Saltire Prize, of 20 million U.S. dollars, will go to innovators from any nation who design environmentally friendly ocean technology, such as better ways to harness tidal and wind power.

“This will ensure Scotland will be at the forefront of the battle against climate change and the move toward a new energy era,” Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told an audience at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The competitors will demonstrate their inventions in Scotland.

Prize “Golden Age”

A new “golden age” in challenge prizes has inspired some of the most significant innovations in modern history, Salmond said.

For instance, the Ansari X-Prize for breakthroughs in human spaceflight saw a 200-U.S-million-dollar return in research and development on a 10-million-U.S.-dollar prize fund.

Salmond wanted to concentrate Scotland’s marine-energy prize on where it might do the most good, he told National Geographic News.

“[We made a] decision to target an aspect of renewables that on one hand has amazing potential but is still in its infancy,” he said.

“Looking at this array of prizes, renewables require an impetus, and this will electrify the renewables community and spur them on to greater effort.”

The country of five million also has natural resources “unrivaled” across Europe, such as 25 percent of the continent’s offshore wind resources and 10 percent of its wave potential, Salmond said.

The push for renewables comes in response to the looming threat of climate change, “the single most pressing issue facing the planet,” Salmond said at the announcement.

A huge glacier the size of Connecticut that broke free from the Antarctic ice shelf last month is only the latest warning sign, he added.

Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs for the National Geographic Society, is one of the first two members of the Saltire prize committee.

“This award is designed to encourage the development of technology that could make a significant impact in our effort to control climate change,” Garcia told National Geographic News.

Renewable energy, unlike fossil fuels, does not produce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Scotland has vowed to reduce its greenhouse gases by 50 percent by 2050 and to run its country on at least 30 percent renewables by 2011, Salmond said.

The country has made inroads: Sixteen percent of its energy already comes from alternative sources.

Even more remote communities, such as Eday Island, part of the Orkney Islands, are 95 percent reliant on homegrown energy.

Costly Endeavor

But Salmond acknowledged that Scotland “lags behind” other European countries in making this new energy boom accessible to its population.

He also pointed out that renewable energy can be costly to jumpstart.

That’s why he advocates a “mass deployment” strategy for renewables—for example, installing several wind-energy projects at once will help make such projects viable, he said.

Now is the time to make that technological leap that would usually take a generation and accomplish it in five or ten years, he added.

“By maximizing our own potential we can provide a scientific research boost for the whole of humankind.”

More details about the selection process will be provided on November 30, 2008, at an announcement at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.

Read Full Post »

Europe is Leading the Way in Wave Energy

The News & Observer, January 17, 2008, Copyright Business Wire 2008

The Sea Could Supply 20% of UK Energy Demand & ~10% of World Consumption

LONDON – Wave energy sources are not only available in plenty, but are also consistent, predictable and have the highest energy density among all renewable energy sources. The best resource is found between 40-60 degrees of latitude where the available resource is 30 to 70 kW/m, with peaks of 100 kW/m. The potential worldwide wave energy contribution to the electricity market is estimated to be of the order of 2,000 TWh/year, about 10% of the world electricity consumption.

The marine energy sector is set to grow faster. However, as it happened for the wind energy, government support, financial investment and technological advancement are needed to see the marine energy sector reach commercialisation.

“Wave energy technology,” explains Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Gouri Nambudripad, “is being developed in a number of countries such as Canada, China, Chile, India, Japan, Russia and the US. However, Europe is leading the way in innovative technologies, pilot projects as well as pushing the existing technologies towards commercialisation including countries such as UK, Ireland, Portugal, Norway and Spain. In tidal energy, Canada, Argentina, Western Australia and Korea possess the resources, but here again Europe is a frontrunner, with the UK and France seemingly promising.”

“The UK – having some of the best wave resource in the world – is targeting 40% of its energy from renewables by 2050 of which 20% is to be sourced from wave and tidal energy,” continues Gouri Nambudripad. “The UK is estimated to possess the capacity to generate approximately 87TWh of wave power annually equivalent to 20-25% of current UK demand. Moreover, the UK has committed GBP 25m since 1999 towards the wave and tidal programme.”

Wave energy devices can be divided into three main categories: shore-line, near-shore and offshore devices. Shore-line devices are devices on the shore. Near-shore devices are ones that are within 12-25 miles off the shore. Finally, offshore devices are those placed in waters of more than 50 metres in depth and/or more than 25 miles from the shore.

“About 1000 patents for wave energy converters are currently in the market and broadly fall under the above-mentioned categories. With so many technologies around there is no clear consensus on which technology will prevail over the others or which ones will be successful,” concludes Frost & Sullivan Analyst Nambudripad.

There are two main research centres in Europe focusing on the development and commercialisation of ocean energy technologies. The first is the European Marine Energy Centre located in Orkney, Scotland. It provides developers with sites to test their prototypes. Government and other public sector organisations have invested around GBP 15 million in the creation of the centre and its two marine laboratories. The other is the Wave Energy Centre in Portugal. It provides strategic and technical support to companies, R&D institutions and public organizations. It also looks for international cooperation helping foreign companies test their devices in Portuguese waters.

The marine energy industry has a long way to go, but ongoing research and government support should lead to improvements making these technologies more economically attractive in the future. Combined with intensifying company activity in this field, Europe is poised to be the place to watch in the marine energy arena of the future.

If you are interested in receiving more information on marine energy, wind energy, renewable energy markets and on our Green Energy Subscription, then send an e-mail to Chiara Carella – Corporate Communications at chiara.carella@frost.com with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, e-mail address, city, state and country. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.

All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

Frost & Sullivan, the Global Growth Consulting Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company’s Growth Partnership Services, Growth Consulting and Career Best Practices empower clients to create a growth focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.frost.com.

Read Full Post »