Shetland Wave Farm

[trout]

Sea snakes ahoy! Plans unveiled for £60m Shetland wave-farm

 

AMBITIOUS plans to put 26 huge snake-like wave-power machines in the water off Shetland will be announced today.

 

If successful, the project off Shetland's west coast will become the largest wave-power scheme in Scotland. More than two dozen 180-metre long red machines would float semi-submerged in the ocean, attached by cables to a junction on the seabed. A single seabed cable would link the devices to the shore.

 

The project would provide enough power for about 13,000 homes a year.

 

Pelamis Wave Power, based in Leith, and utility firm Vattenfall, which today opens an office in the capital, hope the 200-megawatt project will be built by 2014. The project, estimated to cost at least £60 million, has been called Aegir, after a sea god in Norse mythology.

 

Pelamis's second-generation "P-2" wave devices would be deployed. The first of the cutting-edge machines is being built in Leith.

 

There are plans to install this device at the European Marine Energy Centre off Orkney, before pressing ahead with the plans for the west coast of Shetland.

 

Permission is still required from Shetland Islands Council and the Crown Estate before the scheme can go ahead. It is also dependent on a planned subsea cable between Shetland and the mainland being constructed.

 

First Minister Alex Salmond, who will open the new Vattenfall office tonight, welcomed the announcement. He said: "It is clear that Scotland is now seen as the natural home for those who wish to develop and succeed in the marine renewable sector.

 

"Vattenfall's announcement of a joint-venture with Pelamis Wave Power is a significant vote of confidence in Scotland's huge marine energy potential."

 

One of Pelamis's 180-metre long wave-power machines is towed down the Firth of Forth during testing

 

Pelamis Wave Power chief executive Neels Kriek said he hoped the project would be a leading candidate for the Scottish Government's £10m Saltire Prize for commercially proven wave-power technology.

 

"We are delighted to be working with Vattenfall on this ground-breaking project, which we hope will be one of many," he added.

 

Dr Helmar Rendez, of Vattenfall, said: "The partnership with Pelamis allows us to work on developing a site that will prove very productive when we make wave power a commercial reality.

 

"We have big hopes for the future of wave power and see Scotland as a good place to do this."

 

Project manager Clare Lavelle added: "We will work closely with Shetland islanders to identify and develop the best possible project, because we recognise that this cannot be done without the support of the people and businesses of the Shetland Islands

 

Thoughts etc. quite welcome.

[Skunnered]

Is this an area that's used by our local fishing fleet? I wonder if the fishermen will raise objections.

[ArabiaTerra]

Twice as expensive as wind power per MW and it won't happen unless we get the interconnector, which means the windfarm.

 

However, it demolishes the argument that the windfarm will fail due to transmission costs. If they think this can make money, then the windfarm can't fail to at half the cost.

 

Interesting.

[Skunnered]

^^Fair point, AT.

[Ghostrider]

Not much you can say about it at this stage, the proposals are vague in the extreme. The site is going to be "somewhere" between Burra and Fitful, "somewhere" between 1 Km and 9 Km offshore. Whether the precise site eventually chosen encroaches on fishing grounds, a current or former fisherman would be the best to say, and I'm neither. However, wherever the eventual site is, even if it isn't actually on fishing grounds, it cannot avoid being relatively close to them. The whole area also sees a reasonable amount of sea traffic of all sorts, anything and everything thats headed for Scalloway from the south passes through the area, its also a reasonably popular area for vessels working out to the west to seek shelter from easterlies. So one way or another, its going to be a significant hazard to navigation/shipping.

 

The "initial" site is planned to cover anything from 1-2 sq Km....how many lines of barrels is that going to be?? Each line is 170m....and how big may the site grow to in time?

 

Where will the cable make landfall?

 

Can these contraptions survive the worst the western ocean can throw at them, not much else has managed that throughout history. Or are we going to have the brucks of them littering beaches and geos after a year or two? Normally bruck washing ashore I would normally consider a positive side-effect, however, by the look of these things, there's not going to be much worth climbing up and down geos to salvage, not even wid for the fire.

 

Then, as AT says, there's the production costs, and until at least one machine is on site and operational, those are always going to be 90% theoretical, the same as Viking's overheads are, but its difficult to argue from a hypothetical stance on both, that what is anchored offshore won't have higher overheads than its land based counterpart.

 

If that theoretical presumption turns out to be in any ways true, you have to wonder, the same way as you have to wonder about Viking, "what if" this lot are just in the game to jump on the media induced "green" panic bandwagon, and will stay with it as long as the cash is flowing their way, then vanish quicker than thet arrived. In which case, assuming the higher overheads be true, they will be gone quicker than Viking may be gone, leaving whatever is on site at that time abandoned behind them.

 

While Viking may well end up in that position too, abandoned and slowly disintegrating poles on top of hills, while very unsightly and a nusiance to other folk trying to use the hills, won't do much harm. Abandoned rafts of anchored hinged barrels covered 1-2 sq Km or more is a whole other story. Viking's infrastructure will slowly decay and come apart over many years if abandoned, and will largely remain close to its original site.These things, uninspected and unmaintained will come apart much faster, one or two westerlies should just about do it, and the bits will be knocking around beaches and geos all along the west coast for years after. Not to mention the bits floating around at sea, some of which will inevitably be hit be passing shipping, causing perhaps no harm, but equally likely to stove in a few boards or the fibreglass side of your smaller vessels.

[Snaz]

Ghostrider as you say there is not much you can say about the wave power scheme at the moment, so what makes you think they will be uninspected and unmaintained?

 

Why wouldn't they will be given as much attention and monitoring as the windfarm would be?

[Ghostrider]

^^ My reference to "uninspected and unmaintained" was in the context of comparing it with Viking, "if" either scheme went "bankrupt" for whatever reason, and whatever was on site at that time was simply abandoned.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I have little faith any schemes which, at least in part relies on "funny money", aka. Governmental subsidies to make the bottom line look good, and that is all "Renewables Certificates" are, and all they're doing.

 

Political thinking, and govermental budgetary pressures can turn such things on their heads and/or make them vanish in the stroke of a civil servants pen overnight. What we need to know, especially for Viking, but for this too, is whether these schemes could be paying specs on the open market, without any artifically created market conditions such as Renewables Certificates.

 

If either this or Viking was judged worth going going ahead with without the benefits from a loaded balance sheet, then fair enough, maybe they are on to something and bankrupty and abandonment of assets is no more likely than any other business, however if the subsidy is the lynch pin that swings the decision to proceed, we are running a high risk of having either coastline and/or hills littered with decaying garbage at the whim of a small swing in political will.

[Carlos]

Insurance bond against future reinstatement / decommissioning?

http://guarantee.eulerhermes.co.uk/en/reinstatement-bonds/reinstatement-bonds.html

[Ghostrider]

Oh dear. Probably just as well it happened before they got any of their snakes deployed near us though, as "uninspected and unmaintained" would certainly be in force now if they had, right in the face of winter and all.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-30151276

 

One subsidy junkie down anyway.....

[orkneypaul]

They didna deploy them in winter, in fact they hardly deployed them in summer.

I would see them being towed out to the site (when I was home on visits in the last few summers) only to be towed back a couple o days later because a force 4+ was forecast, they were regarded as a joke by the locals In the Island I come from and where the were based. 

The oyster is also based there and is also a joke.

Unfortunately  the sea will kill anything that is man made trying to harness wave power, on the up side the tidal boys seem to be having more success and I personally think that is the way they should go.  

[Scorrie]

They didna deploy them in winter, in fact they hardly deployed them in summer.

I would see them being towed out to the site (when I was home on visits in the last few summers) only to be towed back a couple o days later because a force 4+ was forecast, they were regarded as a joke by the locals In the Island I come from and where the were based. 

The oyster is also based there and is also a joke.

Unfortunately  the sea will kill anything that is man made trying to harness wave power, on the up side the tidal boys seem to be having more success and I personally think that is the way they should go.  

 

I remember the wave generators farce.

 

The Pentland Firth on a good day was definitely too much for them.  But, as you say, the tidal generators appear to be a sound idea.

[paulb]

still sad. it will end up being done overseas. wasted chance.