Lost at sea

New Energy Focus has reported here that the Titan 1 jackup installation barge has been lost at sea. I'm glad to say that no injuries or loss of life was reported.

The Titan was on the way across the Atlantic on the way to undertake a long term (until 2022) contract for Siemens, including installation of the Rhyl Flats turbines.

The bigger question is how much of a hole this loss will leave in the general installation capacity for offshore wind as the UK (and much of the rest of Europe) over the coming years.

And the picture? It's the Lutine Bell, rung at Lloyds of London when a ship is lost.

Bang!

Alex Salmond just announced that the crown estate will be leasing "substantial" areas of the pentland firth for tidal development...and Scottish power is at the front of the queue.

More later

The mighty Pentland Firth

Ok a rainy September evening the Pentland Firth doesn't look like the Saudi Arabia of anything!

I'm here for a tidal energy conference on which I'll blog more later.

The Americans are coming...

The US Department of Energy has announced grants to marine Renewables totalling up to $6.6 million for technologies and Market acceleration and up to $12 million for test centres in Oregon and Hawaii.

More details here.

Pelamis goes live in Portugal

After what can fairly be described as an extended commissioning period, Pelamis announced today that the Portuguese project comprising 3 750 kW devices has been officially inaugurated by the Portuguese Economy Minister.

There's some interesting stuff in the press release. The project has an installed capacity of 2.25 MW and cost €9 million: put another way, that's £3.16 million/MW. Compared with recently published figures for Greater Gabbard offshore windfarm, which estimate capital costs at around £2.8 million/MW, this suggests that wave is almost competitive with offshore wind already. And wave gets 2 ROCs/MWh in the UK (maybe 5 in Scotland), against 1.5 ROCS/MWhr for offshore wind.

So unless there's a load of hidden cost in the Portuguese project, this is really encouraging for wave power.