In an earlier post, I promised to write more about my recent visit to Verdant Power...but first, don't let the picture fool you - there's a 19 hour non-slack period in this stretch of water, running at up to 3 m/s.
On the plus side:
- Verdant's got kit in the water (at least I think it was in the water, the East River's a bit murky)
- Verdant has made real progress with the technology, through umpteen refinements
- It's got further development plans, both in the East River and elsewhere
- The design is simple, with relatively few things to go wrong, and may be scalable
- The site is fantastic, with well-behaved bi-directional flow at up to 3 m/s, within a 4-iron of the United Nations building (well, one of Tiger Woods' 4-irons), and better still a short taxi ride from Wall Street
- The company's already raised some significant finance (exploiting that taxi ride from Wall St)
On the "still to do" side:
- Installation is still difficult and expensive
- Labour costs in New York are high
- Reliability is still unproven, despite time in the water (due in part to the fast technology iterations)
- Revenue support mechanisms in the US are not as clear as in the UK
On balance, I was very impressed with the company's progress, technology and concept. There's still a fair way to go, but it seems to me that there could well be commercial applications for the technology, particularly in more accessible run-of-river style applications.
In summary, nice one Verdant!
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