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!

Tidal power into the Grid

Congratulations to OpenHydro, who have achieved the first power export into the National Grid from a tidal turbine (at least that Redfield is aware of). The Telegraph's coverage of the story is here.

They've narrowly beaten Marine Current Turbines, who are installing and commissioning their device in Strangford Lough at the moment.

Pretty soon....

you'll be able to walk across the Bay of Fundy, leaping from tidal device to tidal device, without touching the water.

The map (thanks Google) shows where the Bay of Fundy lies, on the eastern seaboard of North America.

Now Marine Current Turbines has announced an agreement with the Maritime Tidal Energy Consortium to develop a project in the Bay of Fundy. It joins Open Hydro, and Ocean Renewable Power in planning projects in this area, which benefits from the highest tidal ranges in the world. There are also some suggestions out there on the internet that a tidal barrage might be an option.

The question in my mind is whether there are areas with attractive stream speeds too, but this entry on the Bay of Fundy blog clearly recognises that sites are available.

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!

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.