Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[trout]

Just to throw this into the mix --> Orkney to get 'biggest' wave farm

[Njugle]

And they're joined to the mainland, cablewise. We've been trumphed!

[Sudden Stop]

Good for Orkney, well done to them for getting something started.

 

Any ideas why there hasn't been much development of tidal power. It is about the only thing that is truely reliable. Waves and wind can be out limits or flat calm, solar is rubbish for mass production - tidal power has got to be the way forward.

 

Unless of course this fusion crowd get their act together...

[Njugle]

I was discussing this with someone today, approriately enough. I know of three development projects on tidal, one of which was thought unrelaible due to it's complexity, another was rated as producing above all expectations, and the other was being manufactured and seeking investment. All of them appear to have disappeared from the map entirely. I'm completely be-fuddled. Tidal has to be the best option, why nobody seems to get it working is a mystery, i sincerely wish they could.

[trout]

The majority of tidal power generators that I've seen have so many moving parts with most of them underwater that it's very little wonder they have fallen by the wayside.

 

To me tidal power would need to be the most simplistic of "machines" with everything above water. Anyway, to get it all on paper and then try to get someone to listen and fund it is too much of a struggle methinks!

 

Good on the Orcadians, as Sudden Stop pointed out!

[Sudden Stop]

I would have thought that Britain would be jumping all over tidal power, all you really need is a coast.

 

Places like Shetland, Orkney or the Western Isles are even better that just a plain coast because they have the inlets and small islands which increase the velocity of the water flowing past. Take a look in yell and bluemull sounds or on the ferry to whalsay, or even the north mouth of the harbour. The sheer weight of water pushing through there every six hours is awe inspiring.

[islandhopper]

why nobody seems to get it working is a mystery

No, Njugle, it's not a mystery as such.

 

I am watching both the island groups of Orkney and Shetland and - believe it or nor - since the days when Orkney was second in the oil business they were looking for some kind of "revenge".

 

Wave energy was on the agenda over there for the last 10 years at least, but no-one thought it might be worth to have a look at it. Pelamis was invented years ago, OIC offered a test site. Pelamis made it possible that the EMEC was founded. EMEC attracted US know-how and alternative apparatusses were installed and are know testet on a comparable level to the Pelamis. Over here, we know that Pelamis was sold to Portugal two years ago, being just a prototype, but up to now there was no response neither from the EU nor the UK. Two years testing under realistic conditions, redesigned to commercial scales and now going on the market.

 

For Scotlands sake SE now obviously recognised what was going up over there.

 

If the figures shown in the media are right, Orkney will be independent as far as electricity is concerned: The new project serves some 2000 households and the rest - especially on the outer isles - will be served by already existing small scale wind energy projects - an approach they have never neglected.

 

What is really counting to my opinion: If the Pelamis project in its new dimensions will show sustainable results in terms of production costs per kwh, stability of energy production, handiness to maintanance etc. it will outrule all the giant wind energy projects as "bloody nonesense" within a three years period ... with the only side effect that cruise ships and ships of similar size will be unable to pass through Eynhallow Sound or Eday Sound ... where they never went anyway ...

 

I will bet a damned good bottle of 50 years Highland Park or Scappa cask strength from Gordon & MacPhail on that ...

[Njugle]

A very astute insight islandhopper. Very interesting too.

 

(the mystery related to tidal generators though, but through the info you have posted i am now looking at this page on the EMEC site with lots of research i had not previously seen. Thank you.)

[Heimdal]

There is a pic of a tidal stream generator tried out in Orkney waters some years ago here

http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number2063.asp

It could be raised for maintenance on the columns

[Shoogler]

I am very interested in the prospect of a tidal generator 'solution', rebuilding sections of the Churchill Barriers in Orkney as a causeway with tidal generatopr technology. Everyone knows the problem with these as they are just now and wouldn't it be a fantastic solution to develop a causeway with an inbuilt tidal power potential with it? Now where would this work in Shetland I wonder?

[islandhopper]

Heimdal, that's the Wharness device, a tidal stream generator developed in the USA and since October (?) 2006 placed on an EMEC test site somewhere in the Eday Sound.

Would be a "great" thing to have such a device in a small tunnel below Mavis Grind ...

[Twerto]

I am very interested in the prospect of a tidal generator 'solution', rebuilding sections of the Churchill Barriers in Orkney as a causeway with tidal generatopr technology. Everyone knows the problem with these as they are just now and wouldn't it be a fantastic solution to develop a causeway with an inbuilt tidal power potential with it? Now where would this work in Shetland I wonder?

 

If im not mistaken the strach of water between Sandness and Papstour and then the strech between toft and yell have some of the fastest tidal flows around Shetland.

 

edit: taken from todays Shetland news..

 

Industry insiders denied that Shetland was missing out on opportunities in marine energy by focussing all its attention on wind farms. Fred Gibson of Shetland Composites, said: "Shetland is not losing out whatsoever. The reality is that wind technology is up and running, but wave energy has not been proven yet."

 

I know later in the article they both claim that wave technology is something that can come in the future..

 

but my thought is.. Do we have time to wait and see how this technology works before we cover the north end of the isles in Wind farm(s)

 

If we do, surely it would be better for everyone involved, as in Shetland ( could ) get it's renewable source of power without the huge enviromental impact of turbines.

[islandhopper]

Twerto, as far as I understood some of the EMEC reports it was one of the biggest mistakes of the tidal and wave energy industry that they had looked for the biggest differences between high and low tide and after the fastest flows and highest waves only. It seems to be more likely to use areas of steady flows and permanent wave activities instead. Only that provides electricity at a comparable level 24 hrs all day round and minimizes the risks of damage and black outs / standstills as they have to be calculated for wind turbines / energy.

[Twerto]

Ok it does make sense when I think about it.

 

I am no expect at all. but from the timse ive been fishing up at toft.. it does seem to have a steady tidal flow.. but as much into fishing i have been.. I've never spent 24 hours up there.

[islandhopper]

but my thought is.. Do we have time to wait and see how this technology works before we cover the north end of the isles in Wind farm(s)

NO!

... and I really wish that the folks "representing Shetland" would have a bit more of the entrepreneural spirit of the old days when the future of the oil business appeared on the horizon ...

 

No risk ... no fun ...