Tidal power getting going in the UK

Shetland turbines at Bluemull Sound connected to grid

Turbines installed off the coast of Shetland could herald a "new era" in tidal energy, according to the company running the project.

Tidal energy specialist Nova Innovation said they were the first offshore tidal turbines in the world to deliver electricity to the grid.

Two 100kW turbines have been installed so far in the Shetland Tidal Array at Bluemull Sound.

The blades for the turbines were made by Shetland Composites.

Edinburgh-based Nova Innovation said tidal energy was a "long-term source" of predictable renewable power, with the turbines generating to full power across all tidal conditions.

**LINK**

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There's a video and stuff here

**LINK**

Ady,

I've thought for years this is the way to go, the power density available will be much more favourable and the ultimate source from planetary movement is as reliable as that of the sun appearing each day.


Far and away better than wind turbines and other such weather dependent methods.

Brian.

Hi Ady,

There's another company doing a trial near St David's in Wales... **LINK**

Come on England!

Jon

This actually looks like a reasonable way to generate power. At least it is predictable years in advance, and if you have enough of them round the coastline should be fairly constant(unlike windmills).

Anyone know why the one on Strangford Loch is being de-commissioned?

Optimistically they cater for 1000 low energy houses. With the population increasing at around 5000 households per week it needs a production line.

Tidal turbines appear to be an obvious way forward for power generation. Over the last ten to fifteen years large well respected engineering companies have started work on the technology and then very rapidly abandoned it or sold their work to others. This would suggest that the concept has serious difficulties.

One possible difficulty is that sea water is about 900 times denser than air. This means that the static forces on a structure in a 10 knot tide would be about 13 times great than the same in a 100 mph gale. The dynamic forces from shed wakes etc which would amplify the problems.

One could sit and think about this much further which is what the "big boys" have done. Still it it is more likely to succeed than controlled nuclear fusion.

JA

[I assume that these are free standing turbines like wind turbines and not a barrage scheme. The latter has different problems and advantages].

Edited By JA on 29/08/2016 11:56:39

It's off topic but I'm much more optimistic than you are on that subject.

If and when we do Brexit then I sincerely hope we become full participants in ITER.

Jon

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It certainly looks that way from the video that Ady1 linked

... What did rather surprise me is the [very slow] speed at which they appear to run.

MichaelG.

I always thought that the Boris Island airport would be a good candidate for tidal power.

Use the tide to lift it up.

Have the weight of the thing generate electricity whilst it gradually falls.

Andy Ash. I mis-read that as "Have the weight of the thing generate electricity whilst it gradually fails." A Freudian mistake perhaps.

If Boris has anything to do with it it will tell you it's generating electricity when it isn't

I bet this gets the chop!

Edited By duncan webster on 29/08/2016 14:14:23

Just a bit behind the French who have had the La Rance tidal barrier generating power since 1966!

John

I believe that La Rance was being used as a pump storage scheme and not generating electricity from the tide as original intended. This is one advantage of a barrage scheme.

JA

As far as I can tell it does a bit of both depending on the state of the tide, according to this report by the British Hydropower Association. Still not bad considering how old it is.

John

I think this is an interesting project:

**LINK**

Of course, the technology has been around for a while:

**LINK**

Adrian

As you say Adrian, the technology has been around for rather a long time. The Swansea Bay scheme or even possibly the full Severn Barrier would be excellent projects. Better in my opinion than getting the French and Chinese to build Hinkley C using an as yet untried type of reactor, which will without doubt take twice as long as thought to build and cost four times as much as estimated.

The Government just need to make some sensible decisions (no hope there then) instead of holding endless investigations, committees and enquiries. While they are at it they could stop HS2 and spend that cash on tidal power schemes (another pig just flew past the window).

John

It's a good start. But 100kW is very small. It's going to take a lot of tidal turbines to replace just one typical 100MW (or bigger) steam turbine in a traditional smokestack powerstation.

Hydro electric usually runs on fresh water so the turbine blades have a different marine growth to deal with & i believe that they run quite fast thus throwing anything off before it can fasten itself to the blade

What will be a problem with tidal systems is the gradual build up of marine growth. These turbines run fairly slow so will not shed the slime etc once weed gets a foot hold it will greatly affect performance. This will happen mostly during neap tides.

There are no antifoulling systems currently invented that are safe for the environment that can be used & whilst the designers may have considered this i am sure it will be a major problem

I built the first 'Tidal Stream Turbine' here in darkest Cornwall about 25 years ago, and this became the model for the one in Strangford Lough and many others around the world. It was featured on 'Tomorrow's World' at the time but tool years to be taken seriously. The 'Severn Tidal REEF Concept' was my later design, and addressed the environmental impacts of the old 'Severn Barrage' proposals, and the 'peaky generation curve' of conventional tidal designs.

The REEF is something of a contrast to my usual work designing and building small-scale hydro plant for use in remote parts of the world.

As I am new to this forum (noted the tidal posts) I introduce myself as the seventh generation of steam pump and hydraulic engineers (Joseph Evans & Sons Wolverhampton) who is still building water hydraulic equipment, and my brother James who builds steam locomotives (as in the 'Lyd Project' that started life in the workshop here in Cornwall.

I am very happy to discuss anything about tidal and hydro power, if people are interested.

Hi Rupert,

Am I right in remembering you used to be based in Lanson? I seem to remember seeing some sort of water wheel for a micro-generating plant that had a vertical axis in one of the the old railway buildings in Newport, many years ago.

' Course, I could be dreaming again...

Cobbs.