OpenHydro's got themselves a boat

Irish tidal stream energy company OpenHydro have commissioned their new dedicated barge (at a cost of €5 million) to enhance their capacity to install and maintain their equipment.

This is the first specialist bit of equipment I've heard of, and it's a strong statement of intent by OpenHydro. And better than that, it works!

EMEC wins award

Now recovered from the Scottish Renewables Green Energy Awards dinner on Thursday, at which I'm delighted to report EMEC won an award!

EMEC Tidal open for business!

I spent Friday on the Orcadian island of Eday, watching Alex Salmond open the EMEC Tidal facility. If you look at this carefully, you can see the OpenHydro turbine in the background, just next to Neil Kermode, EMEC's MD. (Alex managed to find some schoolchildren to pose with later on in Eday Comunity School, but I didn't get a photo of that.)

We took a ferry from Kirkwall to the island, looping around the OpenHydro turbine which has been in the Falls of Warness since earlier this year. The picture clearly shows the bow wave around the device in an equinoctal spring tide - about 7 knots.

Marine renewables devices

Over the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to look at three different (distinctly different) marine renewables devices, and the thing that's really impressed me is how much more credible they are than similar devices were only two years ago.

The amount and quality of engineering thinking, simplification and improvement is striking.

The EMEC Board took a trip out to Eday, to inspect the tidal site and the OpenHydro turbine (photo above) this week, and it was really exciting to see this impressive piece of kit in the Eday tidal stream. It wasn't even one of the three I've mentioned above!

Scottish Power and Hammerfest Strom

The tidal industry really seems to be picking up momentum, as Scottish Power announces that it has formed a new company to pursue a tidal opportunity in the Pentland Firth, using the technology tested by Statoil in the Hammerfest Strom project. Details from Scottish Power are here.

The press release talks about testing in Scottish Waters (EMEC anyone?), before an international roll out of the technology.

Sounds like the three years testing in Hammerfest has been pretty successful.

WaveHub crosses the finish line

According to the BBC, it seems that WaveHub has finalised its necessary development funding of £21.5 million from the South West Regional Development Agency. The news story is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6593921.stm.

What's interesting is that the funding appears to come from SWRDA, rather than from what you might think of as more normal sources for emerging technologies - DTI, Carbon Trust, European Sixth or Seventh Framework funding. SWRDA's clearly motivated to try to develop a wave industry in the southwest.

There's competition from EMEC (Orkney) and an Irish test centre in County Cork.

OpenHydro accelerates away from the crowd

While Lunar Energy may have announced a potential 8MW project with E.On, OpenHydro has made some real steps. It has already installed a full scale device in the water at EMEC, and has apparently signed contracts for two commercial projects.

The first to be announced is in the Bay of Fundy, legendary for its tides, where Nova Scotia Power has signed a contract for a demonstration project (http://www.nspower.ca/about_nspi/in_the_news/2007/01122007.shtml).

Then today, it announced that it's signed up with Alderney Renewable Energy (a company which has exclusive rights to Alderney's exceptional tidal resources) for the provision of tidal turbines there too (http://www.waterpowermagazine.com/story.asp?sectionCode=130&storyCode=2042899).

It seems that OpenHydro is really picking up the pace on commercial implementation of tidal technologies.

Lunar Energy announces 8MW project

It seems that tidal power is picking up some momentum, as Lunar Energy has announced an 8MW project in conjunction with E.On. The proposed project is planned to be deployed on the west coast of the UK and to involve 8 1MW tidal turbines.

But it's best not to get overly excited about any imminent tidal revolution. Although Lunar's project is the largest yet announced, it's important to recognise that Lunar has a number of important hurdles to jump before this project reaches fruition.

The key issues are:
Status of technology: Lunar has yet to build a full scale device, or test at any scale in the sea. These are non-trivial challenges.
Finance: It's not clear whether E.On will be funding the building of the Lunar prototype, or whether Lunar has to close a funding round before this can happen.
Competition: There's plenty out there, in the shape of Marine Current Turbines, Scottish and Southern Energy, SMD Hydrovision, Scotrenewables, Woodshed and others.

But good luck to Lunar for closing a deal with E.On, and let's hope they successfully complete the project.