Tidal Power

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Wansworth

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A Galician company Magellan Renovables is developing a trimarran the generate power from the tides and currents according to the local press, they hope to do trials in Scottish waters within the next two years.They see northern Europe where there are strong tides as the potential. customer....
 
Wansworth said:
A Galician company Magellan Renovables is developing a trimarran the generate power from the tides and currents according to the local press, they hope to do trials in Scottish waters within the next two years.They see northern Europe where there are strong tides as the potential. customer....
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I've never been able to understand why this has not been pursued here.
Close onshore here at Isle of Whithorn, we have a tidal stream running at up to 5 knots in one direction or the other pretty much all day.

This must be repeated at loads of places, particularly off the West coast.

And what does the Scottish Government do -- build more windmills!!!!!
 
islecastle1 said:
I've never been able to understand why this has not been pursued here.
Close onshore here at Isle of Whithorn, we have a tidal stream running at up to 5 knots in one direction or the other pretty much all day.

This must be repeated at loads of places, particularly off the West coast.

And what does the Scottish Government do -- build more windmills!!!!!
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As I see it the trouble with tidal power is developers are only interested in the best location, of which there is only 1, its been done there and now its all stalled.
And, as you say, instead of putting a massive sub sea trunk up the west coast they chose pylons up the middle to nab all the would be wind farms... barking.
 
It saddens me that there isn't more effort and investment put into tidal energy. After all, it's totally predictable, happens 24/7 irrelivent of weather conditions, and the generators are pretty-much invisible (being submerged). What's not to like??

You don't even need particularly strong currents to make it work, you can use barrages and tunnels to create a venturi effect.
 
A friend of mine who works in this area said that problems of fouling and corrosion are huge,
Compared to wind power, it's always going to be harder and more expensive to build something that has to be installed at the bottom of the sea in a hostile, high energy environment. Service life will be shorter, maintenance will be far more expensive (compare commercial divers and their support vessel cost/hr with a couple of blokes in a van).

I don't think there is any sort of conspiracy to stunt tidal power development, just that wind and solar are inherently easier, and the problems of intermittent generation are only becoming an issue now that renewables represent a significant proportion of the energy generation mix. Wind and solar are less site specific and the same units can be churned out by the tens of thousands, leading to economies of scale.
 
Correct. As far as I know there isn't a commercially viable tidal generator functioning anywhere in Europe.
My question is, has analysis been done to compare tidal cost with nuclear ?
 
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maxi77 said:
There are several
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tidal_power_stations
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The assertions was that there are no commercially viable tidal power generators in Europe.
It's very hard to find hard and fast information about the funding of the schemes listed on the wiki page, but my understanding is that these schemes are all experimental and not able to stand on their own feet financially- yet.

If they were commercially viable, then investors would be falling over themselves to build more of them.

Of course it can be argued that all forms of energy are subsidised to some extent, either directly or via tax breaks, so it is hard to make an an exact apples to apples comparison.
 
Malo37 said:
Correct. As far as I know there isn't a commercially viable tidal generator functioning anywhere in Europe.
My question is, has analysis been done to compare tidal cost with nuclear ?
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As you will see the Rance power station has been working continuously for 50 years and is still the largest in the world. Not only does it produce power, but controls the water in the Rance estuary and provides a road bridge across the river.
 
Kelpie said:
A friend of mine who works in this area said that problems of fouling and corrosion are huge,
Compared to wind power, it's always going to be harder and more expensive to build something that has to be installed at the bottom of the sea in a hostile, high energy environment. Service life will be shorter, maintenance will be far more expensive (compare commercial divers and their support vessel cost/hr with a couple of blokes in a van).

I don't think there is any sort of conspiracy to stunt tidal power development, just that wind and solar are inherently easier, and the problems of intermittent generation are only becoming an issue now that renewables represent a significant proportion of the energy generation mix. Wind and solar are less site specific and the same units can be churned out by the tens of thousands, leading to economies of scale.
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With the floating units, they're designed for maintenance, in that they're able to be disconnected by using surface systems only; i.e. diverless intervention, and taken off site if required. The technology of this isn't a big deal, most of us on this site deal with similar issues every time we sail. The issues with corrosion are fundamental CP engineering, and fouling is very much area dependent. I agree with you that the costs of maintenance are higher, but not substantially greater than a fishfarm, but the returns are higher and predictable.
 
jamie N said:
With the floating units, they're designed for maintenance, in that they're able to be disconnected by using surface systems only; i.e. diverless intervention, and taken off site if required. The technology of this isn't a big deal, most of us on this site deal with similar issues every time we sail. The issues with corrosion are fundamental CP engineering, and fouling is very much area dependent. I agree with you that the costs of maintenance are higher, but not substantially greater than a fishfarm, but the returns are higher and predictable.
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Various companies have been trying to develop the technology for at least 25 years that I know of, maybe longer. Floating wave generators are very complex.
How do you know that maintenance costs are 'not substantially greater than a fish farm' ? Sounds like a nonsense statement to me.
 
Tranona said:
As you will see the Rance power station has been working continuously for 50 years and is still the largest in the world. Not only does it produce power, but controls the water in the Rance estuary and provides a road bridge across the river.
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Bery site specific individual projects can obviously work. What remains unproven is units that can be replicated thousands of times and placed in a wide variety of sites, just like wind turbines can.

I'm not saying that it will never work, and I'm certainly all in favour of research in this direction. I just get a bit annoyed when people seem to hint at an anti-tidal conspiracy.
 
Malo37 said:
Various companies have been trying to develop the technology for at least 25 years that I know of, maybe longer. Floating wave generators are very complex.
How do you know that maintenance costs are 'not substantially greater than a fish farm' ? Sounds like a nonsense statement to me.
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If I'd been writing about wave generators, then I'd agree that it's a nonsense statement; but I'm not. Floating tidal power units aren't wave generators you see.
I've lifted the following from a Bluewater web page, which I hope will clarify things for you.

Bluewater’s Tidal Energy Converter (BlueTEC) is a floating platform for tidal turbines. Unlike conventional bottom founded designs, BlueTEC offers significant advantages by accommodating most of the critical equipment above the waterline, where it is dry and protected, allowing for easy access for inspection and repair. Furthermore, the most energy is at the top of the water column, near the surface, where the turbine is situated.

Bluewater developed BlueTEC during several years of R&D and testing. The main focus during the development process was on:

Low manufacturing and marine installation costs (low CAPEX)
Low maintenance costs by providing easy access for minor inspections and repairs; the cost of access typically consumes up to 80% of operating costs of other solutions in the industry (low OPEX)
Higher energy output compared to other devices
By providing more energy at a lower cost, BlueTEC aims to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE) of the electricity produced (€/MWh). Lower costs and higher production levels combine into a powerful proposition that will help to make tidal energy projects commercially attractive.

The main advantages of BlueTEC are:

Electrical equipment safely inside floating body, direct access for inspection and maintenance
The turbine is placed in the upper, most energetic part of the water column
Dry power cable connection inside
Suitable for wide range of water depths
Easy installation and retrieval
 
Kelpie said:
A friend of mine who works in this area said that problems of fouling and corrosion are huge,
Compared to wind power, it's always going to be harder and more expensive to build something that has to be installed at the bottom of the sea in a hostile, high energy environment. Service life will be shorter, maintenance will be far more expensive (compare commercial divers and their support vessel cost/hr with a couple of blokes in a van).

I don't think there is any sort of conspiracy to stunt tidal power development, just that wind and solar are inherently easier, and the problems of intermittent generation are only becoming an issue now that renewables represent a significant proportion of the energy generation mix. Wind and solar are less site specific and the same units can be churned out by the tens of thousands, leading to economies of scale.
Click to expand...

Thank for posting this. I hadn't thought about these issues. All makes perfect sense.
 
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