Wednesday August 22, 04:01 PM
World's largest tidal power project set to begin operations later this year |
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By ANI
London, Aug 22 (ANI): Two underwater turbines scheduled for installation at Strangford Lough, off the coast of Northern Ireland, later this year, are all set to demonstrate the advantages of tidal power.
Bristol based Marine Current Turbines had hoped to begin installing the turbines on Monday, but the construction barge scheduled to deliver the turbines was delayed.
Each turbine requires a piece of equipment called a jack-up barge for installation. The barge anchors itself to the sea floor and drills a hole that sets the turbines in place.
The installation will now take place later in 2007.
According to the company officials, it will be the world's largest tidal power project and will generate about 1.2 megawatts of electricity when it starts operations.
According to New Scientist magazine, the underwater turbines look and work very much like wind power turbines.
Each blade is 15 to 20 metres across and is mounted on an axis that attaches to a three-metre-wide pile driven into the seabed.
Tide-driven currents will move the rotors at speeds of between 10 and 20 revolutions per minute, which the company claims is too slow to affect marine life.
The turbines will drive a gearbox, which will, in turn, drive an electric generator and the resulting electricity will be transmitted to the shore via an underwater cable.
Though the Strangford Lough tidal generator is intended purely as a demonstration project, MCT eventually plans to build farms of turbines consisting of 10 to 20 pairs each.
"Of the 60-odd [tidal power] projects I've seen, this seems like the best," said Dave Elliott, a professor in technology policy at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK.
"It's an interesting period. You have lots of approaches and lots of innovative projects. The straightforward underwater propeller seems like the winner," he said.
Elliott said tidal and wave power could eventually provide between 15 and 20 percent of the UK's electricity needs.
But operators would need to develop experience with the technology before the price of energy generated in this way falls to levels comparable to wind power, he said. (ANI)
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