Tidal Power

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2009-06-25T04:18:00Z

Daily Telegraph
Thursday 18/6/2009 Page: 23

A MAJOR conservation group has backed the creation of energy by harnessing the power of the ocean swells which batter much of the Australian coast. WWF-Australia will release a report today claiming energy from waves close to the coast can provide approximately four times Australia"s current national power needs. "Harnessing just 10% [of the available energy] could supply about 35% of Australia"s current power demand," the report said. Building wave energy power stations which could generate 1500 MWs of electricity by 2020 would create 3210 jobs in Australia, WWF-Australia says. The group said this would be enough to power 1.2 million households with clean energy.

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2009-06-24T05:22:00Z

www.news-mail.com.au
18th June 2009

Wave energy will provide clean, renewable power and thousands of Australian jobs for the future, according to a report. WWF-Australia has urged the federal government to invest in wave power following the release of a report on Thursday, titled, Power to Change: Australia"s Wave Energy Future. Greg Bourne, WWF chief executive, said an investment in the industry would create up to 3,210 jobs by 2010. He called upon the government to give wave energy prominence in the Renewable Energy Target (RET) Scheme. "Renewable technologies are the nuts and bolts of Australia"s clean energy future," Mr Bourne said on Thursday.

"What we are seeing here is the birth of a new industry that will provide tens of thousands of jobs and a technology and expertise that we can export around the world, as well as renewable energy to power Australia." Managing director of wave energy developer Carnegie Corporation, Michael Ottaviano, said studies at their plant in Western Australia showed there was mass potential for the industry to flourish.

He said Australia had several optimal sites for wave energy plants including Geraldton and Albany in WA, Port MacDonnell in South Australia, Phillip Island in Victoria and the southern and central coasts of New South Wales. "Australia has the largest and most consistent wave energy resource globally," Mr Ottaviano said. "At least 35 per cent of our current baseload power needs could be generated from the Southern Ocean."

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2008-12-01T21:36:00Z

The (UK) Telegraph has an article on the Vivace tidal / current power device I mentioned recently - Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth"s currents are slower than three knots.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.

As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.

Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.

A "field" of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

The system, conceived by scientists at the University of Michigan, is called Vivace, or "vortex-induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy".

Michael Bernitsas, a professor of naval architecture at the university, said it was based on the changes in water speed that are caused when a current flows past an obstruction. Eddies or vortices, formed in the water flow, can move objects up and down or left and right.

"This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other"s wake."

Such vibrations, which were first observed 500 years ago by Leonardo DaVinci in the form of "Aeolian Tones", can cause damage to structures built in water, like docks and oil rigs. But Mr Bernitsas added: "We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature.

"If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power."

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2008-11-03T10:21:24Z

By Frederik Groeman, Natalia Moldovan & Peter Vaessen, KEMA

Several European countries have a policy to encourage the development of renewable en-ergy sources. This is identified in e.g. the European green paper Energy strategy for a sus-tainable, competitive and secure energy supply (March 2006). In the transition towards a European sustainable energy system for the future and to reduce the dependency of im-ported primary energy sources such as oil and gas, the development of offshore wind power is an essential element. EWEA assumes that almost 120,000 MW offshore wind power will be realized in the next two decades, amounting to 10% of the installed generating capaicty. Apart from offshore wind energy other offshore renewable energy sources such as wave en-ergy, tidal energy and some experimental technologies of offshore energy have been con-sidered.

Recent blackouts within Europe have shown that there is a need for increased European co-ordination regarding the transmission of electricity including aspects related to interconnec-tions. In the EU technology platform Smart Grids , attention is paid to the networks of the fu-ture to ensure that they can accommodate and facilitate large amounts of renewable energy, both distributed and concentrated.

Following the European Smart Grids line of thinking, Airtricity has proposed a European off-shore super grid (HVDC based on Voltage Source Converter technology), combining the grid integration of offshore wind farms with an interconnection grid between countries at sea. One could extend the role of this grid and connect all “ocean power” to it. The supergrid could then be part of the European backbone to connect and transmit bulk renewable power from remote generation sites, even as far as North-Africa (Desertec).

The goal of this paper is to discuss "Ocean Grids", grids at sea at a conceptual level. The idea behind Ocean Grids is to provide an offshore backbone for the mainland transmission networks on one hand, and connection points for offshore wind power stations on the other hand. This will include offshore wind energy and other potential energy sources at sea.

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2008-10-21T13:29:00Z

The Globe and Mail has a report on tidal power in Canada, noting that "Nova Scotia is testing water-driven turbines that could produce 10 per cent of the province"s peak load" - Clean power comes in with the tide.

Atlantic Canada"s Bay of Fundy has some of the world"s highest and most powerful tides. Every day, 100 billion tonnes of seawater surge in and out of the bay - a perfect source of clean, reusable alternative energy, if it can be properly harnessed.

Tidal power isn"t new, of course; small grain mills were powered by tides in Europe centuries ago. But tapping into the reliable, natural ebb-and-flow of water to generate electricity didn"t begin until the 1960s.

In 1984, Nova Scotia opened a small plant that takes advantage of the massive Fundy tide as it rushes up the Annapolis River, funnelling the surge through turbines to generate power. That Annapolis plant produces about 20 megawatts a day, enough to power about 4,000 homes.

Now Nova Scotia is preparing for a much bigger Fundy project, one that is unique to North America and could eventually produce 100 MW of electricity, about 10 per cent of the province"s peak load.

The $50-million pilot project, set to begin by next fall or the spring of 2010, will be different from previous tidal efforts not only in size but also in method.

Rather than pushing water through turbines in the "barrage" style of a hydroelectric dam, three experimental turbines will be dropped into the deep waters of the bay and will operate more like underwater windmills.

"If it"s done the way we think it could be done, residents of Nova Scotia wouldn"t know that the tidal farm existed," says James Taylor, general manager of environmental planning and monitoring at Nova Scotia Power Inc. in Halifax.

The provincial government has chosen three companies to take part in what"s called the Fundy Institute of Tidal Energy. The project will test three turbines for at least two years and feed about four MW to the province"s electrical grid for immediate use - something other trial projects don"t do.

A project at Race Rocks off Vancouver Island, for example, charges storage batteries but the power isn"t used commercially.

"Most projects to date have just been burning off energy," says John Woods, vice-president of energy development at Minas Basin Pulp and Power Co. Ltd. of Hantsport, N.S., which will manage the Fundy project.

The test site will be in the Minas Passage, just west of Black Rock. The first challenge will be to put the massive turbines in the water; then underwater cables six-to-eight inches in diameter will be run about three kilometres to shore, where a small facility will feed the turbines" energy to the power grid.

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2008-10-13T23:53:00Z

Age
Tuesday 30/9/2008 Page: 4

THE market loves a "green" story, regardless of how convenient or inconvenient the truth may be. The latest green tale comes from Perth"s Carnegie Corporation, which released details of an "independent report" stating wave power could provide 171,000 megawatts of electricity for Australia - four times our existing power generation.

Carnegie Corporation managing director Michael Ottaviano said the report, by London based RPS MetOcean, found that Victoria has an "estimated near-shore wave energy resource of 18,000MW, almost double the state"s total installed power generation capacity". "Harnessing Victoria"s waves could generate 20% of the state"s current power needs," Ottaviano added. The market lapped it up, with Carnegie Corporation rising 26%, or 3.5¢ to 17¢ on the news.

But it seems Carnegie Corporation has a different interpretation to Full Disclosure about what constitutes an independent report. In this case, Carnegie Corporation paid RPS MetOcean to do the work. When pressed on how much Carnegie Corporation paid RPS MetOcean, Ottaviano refused to answer. "Of course I can"t disclose that," he said. "Like with all our supply contracts, I can"t reveal the figures paid." Supply contract - an interesting choice of words.

Also tucked away in the executive summary of the report is the following tidbit of information: "Wave data was sourced primarily from NOAA WaveWatch III modelling and compared to available measured data for seven sites across southern Australia." In English, that means the power estimates are based on computer modelling, and the only real data has come from seven buoys floating off Australia"s 36,000 km coastline. That"s one every 5140 km.

And how many of those buoys are located in Victoria, where Carnegie Corporation hopes 18,000MW of power can be generated? None. Nada. Zip. The closest two are at Cape Sorell, on the west coast of Tasmania, and Eden in NSW. There"s another at Kangaroo Island and four are in WA.

Ottaviano stands by the report. "It has been done by RPS MetOcean, a respected company, using tried and tested methods backed by facts and actual wave data gathered from 11 sites," he said. Except it"s seven sites, not it. Indeed, the estimates are largely based on WaveWatch III computer modelling - which British meteorological bodies say "has been found to overestimate the size of waves". "Yes, I am aware of that," Ottaviano told Full Disclosure.

"But we have been deliberately conservative in our estimates because of that." Not as conservative as the nation"s previous Prime Minister, who rode wave power into the last election. "Wave energy, such as that being developed by Carnegie Corporation in Perth, is a leading innovative renewable energy technology," said John Howard back in October, before pledging $5 million to the company.

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2008-10-13T23:52:00Z

Sydney Morning Herald
Monday 29/9/2008 Page: 6

THE power of waves close to Australia"s southern coastline can be harnessed to provide over a third of the nation"s electricity, research suggests. The energy swirling through the Southern Ocean could supply the nation"s power needs many times over, although only a fraction can be harvested cheaply, a report by engineering consultants RPS MetOcean says.

The independent assessment was commissioned by wave electricity company Carnegie Corporation, which hopes to draw investment in a demonstration facility off Fremantle. It is also examining a potential wave farm site off Eden on the NSW South Coast.

The report estimated that about 17,000 megawatts can be reaped through wave farms in areas with a water depth of less than 25 metres. "The World Energy Council estimates that the energy that could be harvested from the world"s oceans is equal to twice the amount of electricity that the world currently consumes," said Carnegie Corporation"s managing director, Mike Ottaviano.

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2008-10-13T12:32:00Z

TreeHugger has a post on a raft of Danish wave power experimental projects - Three Wacky Danish Wave Power Projects.

Portugal gets the distinction of having both the world"s first commercial wave power plant, Aguçadoura Wave Park, which officially opened last month and is expected to grow to 21 MW of capacity - it currently has 2.25 MW of capacity or about enough to power 1,500 homes.

But the Danes, who pride themselves on being leaders in both using wind energy (more than 20 percent of their electricity is wind-generated) and in wind technologies, are trying to catch up with some wave energy (and even a unique combined wave-wind energy project). Currently the Danes have 12 "active" wave power projects. Hit the jump to see the Wave Dragon, Poseidon"s Organ and the Wave Star.

1. Wave Dragon

The Wave Dragon, which looks like an extended ski jump ramp, is a wave power demonstration project on 1/4 the scale the developers eventually hope to achieve. Wave Dragon uses a hydro power concept: wave "reflectors" direct waves toward a ramp, behind which is a reservoir that stores the water until it is flowed over hydro turbines. The test site in Danish waters has been running for 20,000 hours - a 7 MW project is now planned off the coast of Wales. Because of the Portuguese government"s proactive stance on wave power, a 50 MW project is planned there as well.

2. Poseidon"s Organ

Since the spring of 2007, this 37-meter long wave power transformer (sans the turbines) has been under construction at Lolland in Southern Denmark, close to shore. It launched in August 2008. Floating Power Plant is now trying to get investors for a 230-meter-long platform that in addition to the oscillating water columns producing wave energy would also support three wind turbines, together to make enough electricity to support 12,500 households annually. Amazingly, Floating Power Plant is also hoping to put the first platform at a location in Portugal.

3. Wave Star

Though Wave Star is the hardest of the three to visualize, it may hold the most promise. A Wave Star platform cuts at a right angle into the wave motion, with floats partially submerged in the water. When a wave rolls in, the floats are lifted up one by one until the wave subsides. The rising float drives a piston which in turn powers a hydraulic motor connected to a generator. Wave Star"s inventors believes this wave solution will be comparable in price to wind turbines and entail less materials use. Wave Star"s prototype is installed on Denmark"s northwest coast and has over 6,000 hours of operation - the next step is a 3 MW model.

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2008-10-13T05:52:00Z

Hobart Mercury
Monday 29/9/2008 Page: 7

TWO-THIRDS of Tasmania"s energy needs could be generated from waves, says a renewable energy company. Carnegie Corporation is in talks with the State Government about setting up a wave energy trial in Tasmania. The West Australian company will release an independent report to the stock exchange today, estimating Australia has a wave-energy resource of 170,000 megawatts, including 17,000MW in Tasmanian waters.

Of that, the report found 1700MW. or 68 per cent of the state"s energy needs, was economically extractable. Managing director Michael Ottaviano said Tasmania had a wave-energy resource as good as any in the world. "Front a Tasmanian point of view, wave energy aligns so well with other renewable [energy] and in particular Hydro which has been hit more recently with water shortages," Dr Ottaviano said.

He said his firm had spoken with the State Government. However, he said other states, including Victoria and Western Australia were competing for commercial trials. The technology is called CETO, after a Greek goddess. Submerged buoys move with the motion of passing waves to drive seabed pump units which deliver pressurised seawater to the shore via a pipeline.

The high-pressure seawater is used to drive hydro-electric turbines and can also be used to supply a desalination plant. The company hopes to have the technology ready for commercial application by next year and predicts it could be competing with the coal industry as a base-load power generator in five to 10 years. Dr Ottaviano said the technology was already cost competitive with other renewables such as wind and solar energy but had the advantage of constant supply.

Greens energy spokesman Kim Booth said the technology had enormous potential. "It think that would be a fabulous thing that the Government ought to have serious look at." he said. "It is the sort of thing they should have done instead of spending $92 million a year on the Basslink cable." In May, Hydro Tasmania signed a memorandum of understanding with Sydney BioPower systems to generate tidal and wave power to 500 homes on King Island and Flinders Islands. A Hydro spokeswoman said the company had not had contact with Carnegie.

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2008-10-11T02:16:00Z

Greentech Media has released a report on the future of ocean power, identifying 81 projects underway - Trawling for $500 million in ocean power

The emerging ocean power industry is poised to grow from less than 10 megawatts of capacity worldwide today to more than 1 gigawatt in six years, reaching a market worth more than $500 million annually, according to a report by Greentech Media and the Prometheus Institute scheduled for publication next week.

The report, "Forecasting the Future of Ocean Power," offers a comprehensive look at the technologies, players and market outlook for an industry that is currently dominated by developments in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Norway, Ireland and Australia.

In six years, more than $2 billion will be invested to build commercial ocean wave power farms and another $2 billion will go towards research and development globally, said report co-authors Daniel Englander and Travis Bradford. Englander is a Greentech Media analyst while Bradford is the president of the Prometheus Institute.

The concept of using waves and tides to generate electrical power isn"t new. The first patent for an ocean power device was filed in France in the 18th century, while wave motor designs were pursued in the California during the 19th and 20th centuries. However, researchers and entrepreneurs truly dived into the field in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when the oil crisis spurred some renewable energy developments.

The current push for clean energy has renewed interest in ocean power projects, and most of the current designs originated in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The industry"s 35 most active companies have received just over $500 million in investments since 2001, the report said. The money has come from a variety of sources, including venture capital, loans and certain types of government funding.

Only a handful of companies have reported revenues, however. And the industry faces tough challenges in engineering, installing and operating equipment that can generate power at attractive prices.

Ocean energy resources are abundant and reliable, while the size and energy content of waves can be predicted from three to five days in advance. The currents and tides, in fact, are 832 times denser than the air that drives wind turbines.

The ocean power industry has another key advantage that other renewable energy sectors don"t have. It can shorten the time needed for research and development by re-engineering proven technologies from the offshore oil and gas, wind power and shipbuilding industries.

"Technology transfer between traditional marine and wind industries and the ocean power industry has allowed many companies to move rapidly into advanced research and development," wrote Englander and Bradford. "As such, the development bottleneck in ocean power often occurs in the scaling-up stage and not the device design stage."

The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Ireland are among the top ocean power project developers in the world, according to the International Energy Association. In 2006, the association identified 81 projects – from university and government-led research to private industry initiatives

Grist has a post on Verdant Power"s project in New York"s East river - Can"t fight the tides.

Four times a day, without fail, New York City"s East River will change directions. It"s been doing that for ages and will continue to do so long after we are gone. The tides are a constant, powerful force, and the folks at Verdant Power are on Roosevelt Island experimenting with a way to draw energy from them without impeding their flow or harming the local wildlife.

The Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project gives Verdant Power the rare opportunity to test turbines that were developed by Dean Corren, their director of technology. Submerged beneath the surface of the river, these turbines turn passively to face the tides the same way a weather vane would. What makes these turbines special is that unlike dams and barrages, they will employ a kinetic hydropower method will have little to no effect on the local ecosystem.

So far, the tests have been very promising. They are drawing power successfully, and in the two years they have been monitoring the project, there has been no evidence of any harm to local fish or birds. While the flow of the tides are strongest and the turbines are getting the bulk of their work done, the fish aren"t even around. They prefer to save their energy for when the tide is weaker. Of course, during that time, the turbines are not turning. Also, the fish there tend to spend their time near the banks of the river, and the turbines are in the depths near the center. In fact, Verdant Power has gathered so much new data about local fish and bird populations that biologists have benefited from the project.

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