Underwater Energy | Green Energy News

February 26, 2006 – Vol.10 No.49

UNDERWATER ENERGY.

Once it really got rolling in the 1980’s in California the wind energy industry took more than a decade to become permanently established as it is today. The ocean energy industry is probably at the same level of advancement as the wind energy was more than two decades ago. Ocean and tidal current power generation equipment is still being developed with no clear determination as to which technology is superior to others.

Ocean Power Delivery of Scotland, with its snakelike Pelamis floating wave generators, was one of the first to secure a contact for grid-connected wave energy power plant. The 12 Pelamis devices for that 2.25 megawatt project to be built off the coast of Portugal are now being constructed.

The next company to secure a contract to build an ocean energy power plant may be Marine Current Turbines (MCT) of the U.K.

The company, which has successfully tested a 300-kilowatt underwater turbine for three years near Wales, now has permission to install a one-megawatt device off Northern Ireland and has funding from the Welsh government to study sites for a possible 10-megawatt tidal stream array near the coastline.

Marine Current’s SeaGen device has one or two underwater rotors attached to a generator mounted to a central pylon. The mechanical equipment can be raised above the surface for repair and servicing. The rotor, or turbine, turns slowly in tidal currents.

Visit MCT at http://www.marineturbines.com/ , Ocean Power Delivery at http://www.oceanpd.com/