Monday, August 30, 2010

Daily Mail Online: Britain takes first step towards world leadership in tidal energy technology
By Tom McGhie, Mail on Sunday Senior Financial Correspondent

Britain has taken the first significant step towards world leadership in tidal energy technology after a successful two-year commercial trial of a giant underwater turbine.

The huge twin-propeller turbine, owned by Bristol-based Marine Current Turbines, has been anchored to the bottom of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland for two years.

Britannia rules the waves: SeaGen works like an 'underwater windmill' with the rotors being driven by tidal currents rather than wind power

In that time it has been operating round the clock and has delivered two million units of electricity into the grid - enough to power 1,500 homes for two years.
The turbine, called the SeaGen, is the only tidal energy system regularly generating power for the grid and is the one tidal system to be accredited by regulator Ofgem as a British power station.

SeaGen works like an 'underwater windmill' with the rotors being driven by the power of tidal currents rather than the wind. Technical director of Marine Current Turbines Peter Fraenkel said: 'SeaGen remains the world's most powerful tidal turbine and after two years of development and successful operation it is ready to be deployed on a commercial basis.'

New chairman Paul Lester, formerly chief executive of defence and services company VT Group, is now lobbying the Government to provide tax incentives to investors interested in putting money into tidal technology. 'I am not looking for handouts, just some tax changes to encourage more investment,' he said.

'We will also soon need to start raising more funds to enable us to put the SeaGen into industrial production.'

Marine Current Turbines is already working with RWE npower renewable to develop a tidal farm near Anglesey, Gwynedd.

It would involve about nine turbines the size of the Strangford Lough device and provide electricity for 10,000 homes.

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