MONEY COMING TO TIDE POWER

Investors May Pour Billions Into Tide Power on Obama, EU Push
Alex Morales, January 30, 2009 (Bloomberg news)

"…[Marine Current Turbines, 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…

"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…"

MCT's SeaGen (click to enlarge)

"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 U.K. government-funded research unit.

"Including capital expenses, fuel and maintenance, U.K. tidal current power costs 15 pence per kilowatt hour, compared with 5 pence for coal and gas and 7 pence for wind…Designing equipment to survive in salty, corrosive water and installing it in fast-moving currents boosts startup costs…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…"

OpenHydro's tide power device (click to enlarge)

"[MCT’s SeaGen]…operated at full capacity for the first time last month. The turbines are generating intermittently as engineers carry out tests and scientists monitor the effect on wildlife. Positioned between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, the British Isles have about 15 percent of the world’s usable tidal current resources, which could generate 5 percent of domestic electricity demand…Including wave power, the ocean may eventually meet 20 percent of the U.K.’s energy needs…

"Grid-connected tidal power moved from theory to reality in the past decade, with the construction of smaller, test projects…OpenHydro…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. Hammerfest Strom AS…in 2003 made the first tidal turbine connection with a 300-kilowatt project near Hammerfest, Norway…

"The Carbon Trust says developers in Europe may build 2,500 megawatts of tidal current capacity…Across the Atlantic, the Obama administration’s stimulus program may help boost investment in green power…"