For today’s post I have gathered latest news on a form of renewables we read too little about : marine energy. Given the astounding potential (240 GW by 2050), I believe it’s safe to say this will change as technologies mature.
First news, Alstom, the huge French company broke the one gigawatt-hour milestone with their one megawatt tidal stream turbine. As Business Green reports :
Alstom has produced a landmark 1GWh of electricity for the grid from a tidal turbine installed at a Scottish test site. The French company announced last week that the tidal stream turbine at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) on the Orkney Islands, reached the milestone on December 6.
Alstom said its success at EMEC would help it develop a new tidal stream turbine design called the Oceade, which will be used at France’s 5.6MW pilot tidal farm at Raz Blanchard.
Cleantechnica got more on that latter project :
—
But France is not the only one to invest in marine energies. Scotland is even going further. As Climate Progress reports :
The world’s largest tidal energy project, capable of powering nearly 175,000 homes in the U.K. with 400 megawatts of power, will break ground next month in northeast Scotland. Atlantis, majority owner of the MeyGen project, announced that its flagship project had met all the conditions required to start drawing down finance through the U.K.’s Renewable Energy Investment Fund.
The completed project will have 269 sunken turbines, according to Atlantis, which expects to have about 60 of these installed and delivering power by 2020.
In the announcement to investors, Atlantis said: “The major construction and supply contractors to this iconic project have commenced design, engineering and procurement works in readiness for commencement of onshore construction at the project site in Caithness in January 2015.”
Tim Cornelius, Chief Executive Officer of Atlantis, said that Lockheed Martin’s project-specific 1.5 megawatt turbines were scheduled to be delivered on time for construction purposes. In November, the MeyGen project was awarded the first-ever Navigator Award at the International Conference on Ocean Energy, in recognition of the “project’s significant contribution to global marine renewable industry.”
