Eideard

ScottishPower Renewables’ £40 million tidal array will harness the power of the Sound of Islay and generate enough electricity for more than 5,000 homes, more than double the number of homes on Islay.

The 10 megawatt facility will further develop emerging tidal energy technology, and provide economic and community benefits to Islay and Jura.

The Scottish Government said it will cement Scotland’s position as a global leader in marine energy.

Cabinet Secretary…John Swinney…’With around a quarter of Europe’s potential tidal energy resource and a tenth of the wave capacity, Scotland’s seas have unrivalled potential to generate green energy, create new, low carbon jobs, and bring billions of pounds of investment to Scotland.

”This development – the largest tidal array in the world – does just that and will be a milestone in the global development of tidal energy…”

”I am pleased that ScottishPower Renewables will work with the Islay Energy Trust to maximise social and economic opportunities, for instance using local marine contractors during installation or creating new local jobs in the onshore construction phase.

”And the wider Scottish supply chain is set to benefit, with Scottish businesses set to benefit from four million pounds worth of contracts in making the turbines to be used in the development, including manufacture of a test prototype at BiFab in Arnish.

There are any number of satisfactory locations along the United States coastline for similar installations. The problems to overcome aren’t technical but political.

The NIMBY cult is particularly strong in America. “Not-in-my-backyard” is accepted as holy writ by most state and local politicians. The Eleventh Commandment is “Thou shalt not string powerlines over our sainted coastline nor above valuable land dedicated to overpriced subdivisions.

A device thought to be the largest tidal energy turbine to be built in the world has been described by its developer as “simple and robust”.

Atlantis Resources unveiled its AK-1000 at Invergordon ahead of it being towed on a barge to a European Marine Energy Centre test site off Eday, Orkney…The device has two sets of blades to harness ebb and flood tides.

Mr Cornelius told BBC Scotland that the focus of the marine industry at the moment was making the Pentland Firth a huge success in terms of generating electricity from renewable energy devices…

“It is one of the harshest environments on the planet…In order to get a robust turbine we have had to make what we call ultimately the dumbest, simple but most robust turbine you could possibly put in such a harsh environment.”

The AK-1000′s two sets of blades have also been designed to move slowly underwater and Atlantis said they would not pose a threat to sea life…

Atlantis, which has bases in London and Singapore, has been leading a plan to use tidal energy to power a computer data centre in the far north of Scotland…

The computer data centre would provide services for a number of companies and be powered by tidal energy rather than depend on electricity supplied to the National Grid.

I guess this puts the Brits+Singaporeans – and anyone else putting such projects into play – years ahead of that great industrial and engineering giant, the United States.

Between Republicans who prefer to spend taxpayer dollars on their favorite war contractors and Democrats who are happy enough maintaining bureaucratic sinecures, the United States should regain a leadership position in the global economy – never.

Circa 1904

ScottishPower is planning a tidal energy project that will supply all the electricity for one of Scotland’s most famous islands, the Guardian can reveal.

The company is close to signing a supply contract with Diageo, the drinks group, to provide electricity from the project to eight distilleries and maltings on Islay – including the makers of the renowned Laphroaig and Lagavulin whiskies.

The 10MW tidal project, one of the world’s largest, will provide enough electricity for Islay’s 3,500 inhabitants for 23 hours a day.

ScottishPower will submit a planning application in the next couple of months and expects the ten 30-metre underwater turbines to be operational in 2011. The turbines will cost about £50m to install…

There is…strong support on the island, although it is by no means universal. Kevin Sutherland, manager of the Islay group of Diageo distilleries, works at the Caol Ila distillery, which overlooks the Sound. The distillery, like the rest of the island, gets the majority of its electricity from the Hunterston nuclear reactor on the mainland. But the reactor is being decommissioned in 2016 and the distillery suffers frequent power cuts in stormy weather when pylons are blown over.

When the tidal project is built, the distilleries on the island will enjoy a much more secure electricity supply, confounding critics of renewable energy – primarily wind power – who say it is intermittent and unreliable.

One of the biggest obstacles for renewables in Britain has been planning permission. Onshore wind applications are frequently rejected because locals object to the visual impact. Because the Islay generators will be on the seabed, no one can see them and the Scottish government will have the final say on planning.

Trust me. There will be some fop from London who owns fishing rights which he uses once every dozen years – who will find grounds he feels should halt the project.

I am also reminded there were portions of my life entirely powered by Laphroig.

Ocean power has suffered some setbacks recently, such as Pelamis’ bellyflop in Portugal and the UK’s WaveHub losing a developer, but the industry isn’t slowing down — in fact, it’s been a busy month for tidal technology. While there are only a small number of wave or tidal power projects in oceans and rivers right now, and large-scale projects remain a few years away, the race is on for companies hoping to get a first-mover’s advantage.

Alstom jumped into the tidal game this week when it teamed up with Clean Current Power Systems, and Verdant Power said earlier this month that it has moved closer to expanding its New York project. And developers of the Bay of Fundy site in Canada, which will include a turbine from Clean Current, are busy setting the stage for the first turbine to go in the water this fall.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Clean Current now has a big-name partner in its corner, which could give it a leg up over the competition. France’s Alstom, a major railroad and power infrastructure company is getting an exclusive worldwide license to Clean Current’s technology for ocean power applications, and plans to commercialize its first tidal power products by 2012. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but Alstom is not taking an equity stake in Clean Current as part of the deal…

Ocean power is likely to face some more bumps on the road to commercialization — the more projects that are in the water, the more chances there will be for kinks to show up in the technology — but if this pace continues, there could be plenty of momentum to keep things going forward.

Overdue. Like so many alternatives within the fossil fuel-based economy, engineers and scientists have had these ideas for decades – and no financial backers. Not that various governments encouraged the work either. They stayed comfortably in the pockets of the old economy.

Glad to see tidal projects getting a boost. Anyone like me who grew up in a coastal environment – especially if you fished for sustenance – knows firsthand the power of tides. Transforming motion and mass into energy ain’t exactly rocket science. But, rocket scientists always had the budget.