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Scotland Waves Hello to the World’s First Tidal Power Farm
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602360/scotland-waves-hello-to-the-worlds-first-tidal-power-farm/[font face=Serif][font size=5]Scotland Waves Hello to the World’s First Tidal Power Farm[/font]
[font size=4]The seething waters of the Pentland Firth are one of the few places in the world where the technology makes sense.[/font]
by Jamie Condliffe | September 13, 2016
[font size=3]Off the rugged coast of the Scottish Highlands, between the mainland and the majestic isles of Orkney, is a stretch of water that’s known for its intense tides. Now the country is making use of them, as the area is about to become home to the world’s first large-scale tidal energy farm.
The first of what will eventually become 269 turbines is currently being transported to the area, known as the Pentland Firth, for installation, reports the Guardian. Each turbine is a weighty piece of mechanical engineering, measuring 15 meters tall and weighing 200 metric tons, with eight-meter-long blades. Initially four turbines will be installed at the site, with the rest being added incrementally between now and the early 2020s to create something that will resemble a submerged version of a wind farm.
The site was chosen for the MeyGen tidal stream project because of its particularly strong tides, with currents that can move at up to five meters per second. Those waters will help each turbine produce 1.5 megawatts of power, adding up to a total of 398 megawatts—enough to power 175,000 homes—when the farm is complete.
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But despite an abundance of strong waters, wave and tidal power accounted for just eight megawatts of the country’s total installed capacity in the first quarter of 2016, compared to 5,520 megawatts of onshore wind. Arguably, the project is notable for happening at all: tidal energy has struggled to take off because it’s so expensive to build out the required infrastructure.
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[font size=4]The seething waters of the Pentland Firth are one of the few places in the world where the technology makes sense.[/font]
by Jamie Condliffe | September 13, 2016
[font size=3]Off the rugged coast of the Scottish Highlands, between the mainland and the majestic isles of Orkney, is a stretch of water that’s known for its intense tides. Now the country is making use of them, as the area is about to become home to the world’s first large-scale tidal energy farm.
The first of what will eventually become 269 turbines is currently being transported to the area, known as the Pentland Firth, for installation, reports the Guardian. Each turbine is a weighty piece of mechanical engineering, measuring 15 meters tall and weighing 200 metric tons, with eight-meter-long blades. Initially four turbines will be installed at the site, with the rest being added incrementally between now and the early 2020s to create something that will resemble a submerged version of a wind farm.
The site was chosen for the MeyGen tidal stream project because of its particularly strong tides, with currents that can move at up to five meters per second. Those waters will help each turbine produce 1.5 megawatts of power, adding up to a total of 398 megawatts—enough to power 175,000 homes—when the farm is complete.
[center]
[/center]
…
But despite an abundance of strong waters, wave and tidal power accounted for just eight megawatts of the country’s total installed capacity in the first quarter of 2016, compared to 5,520 megawatts of onshore wind. Arguably, the project is notable for happening at all: tidal energy has struggled to take off because it’s so expensive to build out the required infrastructure.
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3 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
http://www.meygen.com/about-phase-1a/
The Annapolis Royal Generating Station is more like a hydro-electric dam, with a single turbine:
https://tethys.pnnl.gov/annex-iv-sites/annapolis-tidal-station
[font face=Serif][font size=5]About Phase 1A[/font]
[font size=3]MeyGen Phase 1a is the first build-out phase of the MeyGen Tidal Energy Project in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth; the world’s first multi-turbine tidal stream energy project. Phase 1a has a capacity of 6MW (4 x 1.5MW turbines).
The Project will consist of 1 x Atlantis and 3 x Andritz Hydro Hammerfest turbines. The tidal turbines are 3 bladed horizontal axis turbines with an 18m diameter rotor and fully submerged with a minimum of 8m clearance to the sea surface at Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT). Find out more about the tidal turbine technology.
Each turbine will be positioned on the seabed with a tripod gravity-base turbine support structure and a 4.4kV turbine subsea cable. The cables will connect the turbines to the onshore Power Conversion Centre at the Ness of Quoys, Canisbay. The cables will run along the seabed until they reach horizontal directionally drilled bores at roughly the 10m water depth. The cables will then run under the seabed through the bores to the Ness of Quoys site. The Power Conversion Centre will house converters, control equipment, transformers and switchgear to manage the turbines and provide the connection for the export of electricity to the national grid.
Once constructed, Phase 1a will run for 25 years, at which point it is proposed that it will be decommissioned, however the option to re-energising the project will be considered. Following Phase 1a, MeyGen plan to continue to build-out the project’s Inner Sound lease site to it’s full 398MW capacity. More info about the project can me found here.
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[font size=3]MeyGen Phase 1a is the first build-out phase of the MeyGen Tidal Energy Project in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth; the world’s first multi-turbine tidal stream energy project. Phase 1a has a capacity of 6MW (4 x 1.5MW turbines).
The Project will consist of 1 x Atlantis and 3 x Andritz Hydro Hammerfest turbines. The tidal turbines are 3 bladed horizontal axis turbines with an 18m diameter rotor and fully submerged with a minimum of 8m clearance to the sea surface at Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT). Find out more about the tidal turbine technology.
Each turbine will be positioned on the seabed with a tripod gravity-base turbine support structure and a 4.4kV turbine subsea cable. The cables will connect the turbines to the onshore Power Conversion Centre at the Ness of Quoys, Canisbay. The cables will run along the seabed until they reach horizontal directionally drilled bores at roughly the 10m water depth. The cables will then run under the seabed through the bores to the Ness of Quoys site. The Power Conversion Centre will house converters, control equipment, transformers and switchgear to manage the turbines and provide the connection for the export of electricity to the national grid.
Once constructed, Phase 1a will run for 25 years, at which point it is proposed that it will be decommissioned, however the option to re-energising the project will be considered. Following Phase 1a, MeyGen plan to continue to build-out the project’s Inner Sound lease site to it’s full 398MW capacity. More info about the project can me found here.
…[/font][/font]
The Annapolis Royal Generating Station is more like a hydro-electric dam, with a single turbine:
https://tethys.pnnl.gov/annex-iv-sites/annapolis-tidal-station
[font face=Serif][font size=5]Annapolis Tidal Station[/font]
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The Annapolis Tidal Power Plant came online in 1984. The turbine is a single effect 7.6 m diameter horizontal axis Straflow turbine designed to generate power during discharge from the reservoir into the sea. It has a capacity of 20 megawatts and a daily output of roughly 80-100 megawatt hours, depending on the tides.
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While effectively generating electricity, the blocking of water flow by the dam (to allow the tidal difference to accumulate every six hours) has caused a slight increase in river bank erosion on both the upstream and downstream ends. The dam also has the potential to trap some marine life. Two notable cases occurred in:
[font size=3]…
The Annapolis Tidal Power Plant came online in 1984. The turbine is a single effect 7.6 m diameter horizontal axis Straflow turbine designed to generate power during discharge from the reservoir into the sea. It has a capacity of 20 megawatts and a daily output of roughly 80-100 megawatt hours, depending on the tides.
…
While effectively generating electricity, the blocking of water flow by the dam (to allow the tidal difference to accumulate every six hours) has caused a slight increase in river bank erosion on both the upstream and downstream ends. The dam also has the potential to trap some marine life. Two notable cases occurred in:
- August 2004: a mature Humpback whale (nicknamed Sluice) swam through the open sluice gate at slack tide, ending up trapped for several days in the upper part of the river before eventually finding its way out to the Annapolis Basin.
- Spring 2007: When a body of an immature Humpback whale was discovered near the head of tide in the river at Bridgetown. A post-mortem was inconclusive but suggested the whale had become trapped in the river after following fish through the sluice gates.
