A Scottish tidal energy developer has built a new tidal turbine which can deliver renewable energy with no visual impact at costs that is similar to fossil fuel generation.
The team at Renewable Devices Marine, based in Roslin, near Edinburgh, has successfully tested its Capricorn Tidal Turbine which it considers to offer better in-situ ‘power for cost’ generation than the proposed new tidal-lagoon energy scheme in Wales, as evidenced in the following table (below).
Renewable Devices’ director, Dr. David Anderson said: “We have brought together world class innovation and a proven engineering track record in renewable energy product development, to deliver the world’s lowest cost and most environmentally sensitive marine energy, in the form of the Capricorn Marine Turbine – a unique tidal stream turbine design delivering an unrivalled combination of innovation and reliability.
“The Capricorn 5 (50 kW turbine) and the Capricorn 125 (1.25 MW turbine) provide the lowest cost, the most reliable and the most environmentally sound marine energy generation anywhere in the world.
“As can be seen, for a similar sized project, the civil infrastructure that we require using Capricorn Tidal Turbines, the capital cost of the project and the payback are all significantly less than for the tidal lagoon project.
“Moreover, the environmental impact of creating an eight-mile long sea wall <in Wales> is a completely unknown factor”.
As home to the Orkney-based European Marine Energy Centre and with Edinburgh-based Atlantis Energy and MeyGen – which is building the equivalent of an sea-bed power station in the Pentland Firth off Caithness and Nova Innovation, also based in Edinburgh – Scotland is considered a world leader in marine energy.
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Tidal Lagoon
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Capricorn Tidal Flow
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Generation
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530GWh
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530GWh
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Number of homes powered
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155,000 homes
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155,000 homes
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Area of seabed
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11.5 square km
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0.25 square km (2% of the area)
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Visual Impact
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9.5km sea and walls and buildings
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None (all operations sub sea)
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Tonnes of steel
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100,000 tonnes
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4,500 tonnes (less than 5% of the Steel)
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Cost
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£1,300 million
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£180 million (less than 15% of the cost)
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Payback period
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Over 35 years
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Under 5 years
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