Tidal power getting going in the UK

Welcome to the Forum, Armstrong.

I remember the ill-fated 'Salter Duck' on Tomorrow's World.

Do tell us more!

Neil

Here is my venture into hydro, this is a Francis turbine installed at a local farm here in Canterbury (NZ), it was imported from the USA, in 1879.  It has a head of about 16ft. 

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 01/09/2016 11:12:09

Salter had a frustrating time of it. Hopefully Rupert is finding more success in his endeavours!

Hello,

Yes, that was my workshop in 'Lanson'. We moved back to the family mill about 30 years ago, and now the old workshop is the main 'shed' for the 'Launceston Steam Railway'. Apologies for the delay in posting a reply, but I have been trying to stop 'Hinkley 'C' Nuclear Power Station in favour of renewables and grid control systems (without success I regret).

The turbine you saw in the workshop must have been running for over 30 years by now. Not quite sure which one it was, but there may be a picture on my web site www.evans-engineering.co.uk . I have been hoping to update the site for sometime, but not enough hours in the day.

As for steam things, I had hoped to salvage the two enormous (30 inch bore) 'Cornish' type steam pumps (JE&S) from Manton Colliery a few years back, but I gather that the shaft has been filled in and that there is a B&Q on the top of the site and the pumps are 300 feet below it! Maybe an archaeological project in a few hundred years time will dig them up!

Small-scale hydro has been swamped by an enormous amount of 'red tape' that grew out of Government grants and 'Feed-in Tariffs'. Now the subsidies are almost gone and one is left with just the 'Red Tape'. Anyone out there still interested in building things?

Rupert

Hello again,

Ian SC, Your turbine looks like a cased 'Victor' or similar. Does it have a cylinder gate or 'Francis' type gates? The former type tend to get rusted up unless they are operated frequently. Are you running on fixed load, or do you have a 'load control governor'?

Rupert

A little history of the turbine: It was made by Stout Mills and Temple of Dayton, Ohio, it has a patent date of 1859. It has the name "The American Turbine Company" It was installed at Homebush (Canterbury NZ) in 1879.

Control is by "Francis " type gates.

Twenty two years ago when we first proposed getting it going again it was siezed solid, but we found the only problem was that the wooden bearing blocks were dry, and were gripping the shaft, we had to replace the rods controlling the gates , as some of them had rusted out. The only load it has on it for demonstration is a Canning generator from an electroplating plant, I think it's 12V 200 W, but it only lights up a couple of light bulbs. In modern times water is in short supply, so it is only run for a few minutes at a time.

It's last "work" load was a saw bench with a 30" blade on the saw, just the thing for cutting fire wood, but for saftey reasons we limit the amount of driven machinery.

Ian S C

How viable is producing energy by his method, the taxpayer has been funding so called research into producing energy this way for years with accessing taxpayer's money an industry in itself.

Many of these funded companies have produced a very nice income for a few and go into liquidation all the time, if it IS viable then why isn't the electricity industry ploughing some of their huge profits into these 'wave machines' or do they see them as waving goodbye to a small fortune. This latest one will power 270 house for a year at a cost of £4 million!

The Scottish Government rescued the failed company Pelamis less than a year after they received a £4.5 million funding package, rescued and taken under the wing of Highland Enterprise to the tune of £14 million a year 'ongong'.

A few years ago we looked at some local estate river 'hydro' systems, some from the early 20th century and all had suffered from lack of maintenance mainly because of the cost of labour. The biggest problem though was silting up, one hard winter's downpour and the turbines were out of action, from fine silt to some rocks the size of a 45 gallon drum and bigger. From our house we can hear the boulders in the river rumbling on wild wet winter days! I can vouch that living in a modern house with no electricity and the water pipes frozen isn't fun!

One of the most impressive looking was on Blackmount estate, but like the others it was silted up and abandoned long ago, electricity on a pole is cheaper.

Solar power combined with stations like Dinorwig could be part of the answer.

**LINK**

We also waste a lot of energy with inefficient appliances.

Dinorwig is only part of the answer as you said, because the 'run around efficiency' is only about 55% when you consider the transmission, motor, pipe, turbine and transmission losses back to the network. It is far better to give customers a discount on their bills if they keep their electrical load very constant by installing heat-storage cookers and large hot water storage tanks.

I built the first tidal stream turbine over 20 years ago for £20,000 and made no profit, but those who jumped on the 'band-wagon' have made a fortune out of UK and EU funding. Tidal power is perfectly able to make a reasonable commercial profit, provided there aren't hundreds of bureaucrats and consultants wanting to climb on the backs of those who want to do something.

There shouldn't be any particular problem with silt and boulders on a hydro project, if the intake is correctly designed. I have worked on projects in Nepal, where the Monsoon brings everything down the river. You can't fight it, so you have to have a 'cunning plan' as they say!

Any reasonable hydro project should pay for itself in under 10 years without subsidy and last at least 50 years. The last lot of investors I talked to about a hydro plant wanted a three year payback or about 40% return on their investment, so I am not surprised that there aren't many projects being built.

There is a bigger project on going in the north of Scotland, Phase 1a 6MW is due on stream soon then on to 398MW capacity. See **LINK** for details. It is worth noting that these tidal turbines need a reasonable tidal speed (5kts) to work well.

Time to visit this again (sorry for the pun).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eling_Tide_Mill

Frank