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21 Feb 2007
The Scottish Executive has given the go ahead to world's biggest wave power farm which will be built off the coast of Orkney in a project set to cost £10m.
Initial plans are for four connected wave energy converters with a combined output of three megawatts, enough to power about 3,000 homes.
Scottish Executive Deputy First Minister Nicol Stephen said: "Today marks a vital milestone in Scotland's drive to be a world leader in the development of marine renewables."
The Pelamis machine, named after a type of sea snake, is a 520ft tube consisting of a buoyancy section and a power conversion module.
Each tube produces 750kW of power and uses wave motion to push hydraulic rams into a central generating unit.
This action pressurises oil in a reservoir which in turn powers the generator. The power is then sent back to shore via a single cable and fed into the National Grid.
Keith Anderson, director of renewables at Scottish Power, said: "The reason people get so excited about the potential of marine [power] is that it is a very predictable and very constant source of energy production."
Wave energy is still in the development stage and needs to be subsidised. But, as with any new technology, the costs will decrease as it becomes more efficient and widespread.
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Not the best wave technology
I would never select this type of wave power generator, for several reasons. First, the device contains many electrical and hydraulic mechanisms that will cause failure should the water seals fail on the device. There is also the possibility of leakage of hydraulic fluid into the shoreline, polluting the water; the device is hardly any better than crappy wind power at generating power in a reliable, predictable fashion. What that claim of 3 megawatts really means is unknown. We all know by now how fraudulent have been the claims of wind advocates, who characterize wind farms as having 100 megawatts capacity when its known that they can barely average 35 megawatts of low quality eletrical power. I'm sick and tired of hearing misleading and sometimes downright lies about alternative energy sources. The media seems incapable of ever getting the facts straight. Therefore I have no idea from what I've read of actually how much power these things will generate. The other problem with these devices is that they are overly complicated and fragile in their design, compared to an excellent simple and foolproof design like the Seadog wave machines and others that produce a stream of seawater to hydroelectric generators for power generation. Those devices conytin no internal electrical components or parts that could be harmed by the effects of corrosive seawater, nor do they contain any hydraulic fluids, nor are the devices anywhere near as expensive to build. They also provide reliable, on demand power and qualify as primary power sources (baseload generators) and are thus light years ahead of both wind and electrical wave machines.
Posted by: kent beuchert 21 Feb 2007