WORLD’S BIGGEST WAVE ENERGY PROJECT GETS ‘GO’

Some call it hydrodynamic power, others call it hydrokinetic energy, others call it ocean energy or marine energy. In Scotland, where they’ve been developing technologies to capture the power of North Sea waves crashing against remote islands at the European Marine Energy Centre since 2006, they call it wave power and they’ve just given approval for the deployment of what will be the world’s biggest commercial-scale installation.

Regardless of what its called, it’s a very real New Energy source. Experts say the energy in waves, tides and currents could generate 10% of U.S. power and 25% of UK power. One UK analyst says global potential could match present world hydroelectric capacity. Another expert calculated that wave energy from 10 kilometers along a shore could replace a nuclear or coal plant.

Scotland’s Siadar Wave Energy Project (SWEP) (off the outer Hebrides island of Lewis near the town of Siadar), though a modest 4 megawatts and capable of serving no more than 1800 homes, will be twice as big as the only commercial-scale wave energy project now in servce, the 2-megawatt Pelamis project off Portugal’s Atlantic coast.

From scottishgovernment via YouTube

Unsatisfied with the small size of the project, Patrick Harvie, a Green Party member of Scotland’s Parliament, responded to the announcement it would go forward by saying it is "...a stark illustration of the failure of successive Scottish administrations to provide enough support for wave and tidal power…It would take 340 schemes on this scale to replace just the single nuclear plant at Torness…If the First Minister is serious about ending Scotland's dependence on nuclear power he'll need to up his game on marine renewables."

Wave energy experts, cognizant of the challenges still facing the incipient New Energy technology, believe the Scottish government approach may be wise.

Stephen Salter, professor of engineering design/wave energy expert, University of Edinburgh: "It is still small but the longest journey starts with a single step."

First Minister Alex Salmond: "The Siadar wave farm will be one of the largest consented wave electricity generating stations in the world…It is the first commercial wave farm in Scotland…This is good news for the Western Isles and for Scotland but its long-term potential is global."

Another way this is exciting news is that it partially resolves a struggle between Lewis Islanders and New Energy producers begun last year over a proposed wind installation. Such standoffs were in the past played out as zero-sum games between Old Energy and conservationist locals: Either the energy was developed at the risk, and sometimes ruin, of the environment (think Alaskan pipeline and Exxon Valdez or Nigerian oil) or the environment was protected at the cost of energy production (think nuclear power or offshore oil drilling in the U.S.).

In this case, Outer Hebrides islanders and environmentalists have both made peace with wave energy.

Angus Campbell, leader, Western Isles Council: "This is welcome news…We have always taken the view that the Outer Hebrides has a wide range of potential opportunities in the production, storage and use of renewable energy and wave power is certainly an exciting prospect for the future."

Martin Scott, Western Isles conservation officer, RSPB Scotland (opponents of last year’s wind project): "The Siadar scheme is a great example of a renewable energy project that's located sensitively and won't harm wildlife and the environment so we've supported it throughout."

Pelamis Wave Power Ltd., a Scottish company, installed and operates the technology for the world’s first commercial-scale installation off Portugal. It went into operation in October 2008. (See THE FIRST WAVE FARM IN THE WORLD) It consists of 3 Pelamis devices and has a ~2-megawatt capacity.

The Pelamis generator now at work off Portugal. (click to enlarge)

Scotland’s Wavegen and the UK’s npower renewables will install and operate SWEP in Siadar Bay. It will use an Oscillating Water Column (OWC) device, a completely different technology than that used by Pelamis off Portugal. The OWC device is anchored and has the waves flow over and through it. Inside it, a turbine is turned by air pushed by surging water as waves go in and out, generating energy with the bi-directional flow.

click to enlarge

Hydrokinetic energy technology is still evolving. Some believe one technology will emerge as dominant in the same way that the 3-blade turbine dominates the wind industry. Others think a variety of technologies will prove themselves best in varying conditions, similar to the various solar technologies in use for differing conditons and purposes. Either way, the high costs of wave energy installations are expected to come down as technologies prove themselves, demand follows and increased production creates economies of scale in the supply chain.

Roger Bedard, head of ocean energy research, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI): "Look at wind…A kilowatt hour from wind cost fifty cents in the 1980s. Now it's about seven cents."

That price for wind-generated electricity is at about the same as natural gas-generated electricity and about what coal-generated electricity will cost when the cost of greenhouse gase emissions (GhGs) is included. But that price is only part of the story. New wind (and a new solar power plant) is a much better investment than new coal or nuclear. It is likely that the emphasis on new technology and emissions-free power will sooner or later make wave energy (and the other hydrokinetic energies) price-competitive as well.

Flowing water is 800 times denser than wind. Technology that captures such a force therefore has the potential for enormous efficiency. Like the other New Energies, the hydrokinetic energies are not only emissions-free, but infinitely renewable and require no destructive mining or drilling to develop.

Unlike the other New Energies, the hydrokinetic energies are regular and completely predictable. Currents flow uninterruptedly. Tides rise and fall with lunar cycles. Waves gather force over thousands of miles and can therefore be planned for, days in advance.

One challenge remains to be conquered: The harsh marine environment. And it is not the power devices alone that must endure the forces of tempestuous oceans, deep water lakes and raging rivers. Cables must bring the power generated in the water ashore.

Both generators and transmission systems must also be compatible with ocean, coastal and river ecosystems, habitat, migrational patterns and businesses such as fisheries and tourism that ply the waters where the energy is to be harvested. The myriad potential interactions between the hydrokinetic energy systems and the world in which they will be at work are simply not yet fully known.

Roger Bedard, EPRI: "Environmental effects are the greatest questions right now…because there just aren't any big hydrodynamic projects in the world."

The best way to get answers and make appropriate corrections going forward may be to do exactly what the hydrokinetic energy industry is doing in Scotland: Take it one step at a time.

Bedard, EPRI: "Start very small. Monitor carefully. Build it a little bigger and monitor some more. I'd like to see it developed in an adaptive way."

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Go-ahead for first wave station; One of the world's largest wave stations is to be constructed off the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles.
22 January 2009 (BBC News)
and
Green for go as isle plays host to world’s largest wave farm
Jenny Haworth, 23 January 2009 (The Scotsman)
and
Green future for island as plan for wave power is unveiled
David Ross, January 24, 2009 (The Herald)
and
Capturing the ocean’s energy
Jon R. Luoma, December 8, 2008 (Yale Environment 360 via UK Guardian)

WHO
Wavegen (Matthew Seed, CEO); npower renewables (Paul Cowling, managing director); Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond; Stephen Salter, professor of engineering design/wave energy expert, University of Edinburgh; European Marine Energy Centre; Roger Bedard, head of ocean energy research, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

WHAT
Siadar Wave Energy Project (SWEP) will be the biggest wave energy project in the world.

Look at the power off Scotland's west coast! (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- SWEP is one of the first marine energy projects to be approved in the UK. Plans call for it to be put into operation by 2011.
- In 1799 (Napoleonic) Paris, a Monsieur Girard patented the first known design to mechanically capture ocean wave energy for driving pumps and sawmills.
- In the 19th and 20th centuries, wind, solar and hydrokinetic energies were eschewed in favor of cheap fossil fuels.
- In the 1970s, while the U.S. was rediscovering wind and solar, some in the UK began looking again at hydrokinetic energy.

WHERE
- The Siadar Wave Energy Project is Siadar Bay, 350 meters the shore from Siadar, a town on the Isle of Lewis, one of the Hebrides (or Western) Islands, off the west coast of Scotland.
- The Pelamis project is off the Atlantic coast of Portugal.
- Other research projects are ongoing off the coast of Cornwall in the UK, off the Pacific Northwest coast and the New Jersey coast of the U.S., in the Gulf Stream off Florida’s Atlantic coast, in new York’s East River and on the upper Mississippi River, in tidal flows of the River Severn in the UK, in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Many others are planned.

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WHY
- The SWEP is a £30 million, 4-megawatt installation. It is twice the size of the Pelamis project, world’s only other commercial-scale wave farm.
- SWEP is expected to create ~70 jobs in Scotland’s sparsely populated Western Isles.
- It will use the oscillating water column (OWC) technology. Waves push air in and out of chambers, which drives a turbine.
- A causeway will built 200 meters into the bay and a breakwater with 10 concrete caissons will be installed in the seabed. 36 to 40 turbine devices in the caissons will generate 4 megawatts of electricity.
- Other prominent hydrokinetic technologies include:
(1) Ocean Power Technologies’ (OPT) PowerBuoy® is a stationary buoy that translates the rising and falling motion of waves to a piston that drives a generator.
(2) AWS Ocean Energy’s Archimedes Wave Swing captures the up and down motion to pump air and spin a turbine that powers a generator.
(3) Finavera Renewables’ device captures the wave motion to move hydraulic fluid that drives a generator.
(4) Pelamis’ long, serpent-like devices capture the flow of waves.
(5) Verdant Power’s bladed turbines on the bed of New York's East River capture current flows just as land turbines capture wind.
(6) Free Flow Power is working a different technolgy to capture currents on the Mississippi River.
(7) Marine Current Technologies’ tidal device to be tested at Canada’s Bay of Fundy is in some ways similar to some current devices but a tidal barrage almost like a hydroelectric damn is proposed the UK’s Severn River and other devices are being tested at locations around the world.

This is a superb illustration of wave energy devices in any language. From creainnova via YouTube

QUOTES
- Paul Cowling, managing director, npower renewables: "Scotland has immense potential in marine energy and the opportunity to be a world leader in marine renewables. This consent is an important milestone in the development of wave power technology and is to be celebrated. However, commercial demonstration projects such as Siadar still face significant economic challenges."
- Matthew Seed, CEO, Wavegen: "The Siadar Wave Energy Project will be a major step in the development of the wave energy industry in Scotland and worldwide. Wavegen's proven technology will now be employed at full commercial scale, paving the way for real cost efficiencies which will bring the cost of wave energy closer to that of more established technologies."
- First Minister Salmond: "This is proof of Scotland's unique opportunities in renewables and evidence that we are already on the way to seizing every opportunity to maximise our natural resources and capability to generate clean, green energy."
- Jason Ormiston, CEO, Scottish Renewables: "The marine technology of the future has today taken solid steps towards full commercial realisation. The planning system has, at times, been a major barrier to renewables development in Scotland, but this timely decision by government should send a confident message to marine developers that Scotland maintains a world leading role in marine energy."