OT Wave Power becalmed

On same day that Scottish Government announcesWave Energy Scotland to be established:

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Pelamis, UK`s most advanced wave power research company goes into administration:

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Joined up thinking... :-(

Reply to
Adam Aglionby
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What is the situation with that tidal power station between two islands of Scotland? From the documentary I saw it should be generating power by now. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

how is wave energy an "early stage technology"?

It was all the rage on TW when I was a kid!

tim

Reply to
tim.....

It's called the Islay tidal project or variations on that. Still not there yet as far as I can tell from Google.

Reply to
charles

TW used to be the kiss of death for most things.

Reply to
charles

Things aren't much better off Cornwall. The Wave Hub, a much-publicised 'socket' on the sea bed some ten miles NW of the Cornish town of St. Ives, was put into place in 2010 amid much publicity. It was designed to allow up to four different experimental wave energy devices to be tested. It is linked to the national grid, and is capable of handling 30MW. It is currently owned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and cost ~£28 million paid for mostly by UK taxpayers. More at

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Since then, almost nothing.

I say 'almost', because from time to time they announce that another berth on the Hub has been booked. The first sign that anything real was happening was at the end of June this year, four years after the Hub been installed, when Seatricity towed a device out from Falmouth and connected it to the Hub, amid much fan-fare-blowing. See

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Five weeks later, in early August, the Seatricity device was towed back to Falmouth.

On enquiring as to what had happened, and had something gone wrong, I was given a brief and rather curt answer that it had been taken back to Falmouth for normal routine inspection, prior to being deployed on a continuous basis into the winter. It did surprise me that they had gone to the trouble and expense of towing the device out to the Wave Hub, only to go to more trouble and expense of towing back home again after only five weeks, just for a routine inspection.

Three months later the Seatricity device is still sitting on the dockside in Falmouth. Obviously the 'routine inspection' is taking a long time. I suspect there's more to it than they have admitted. Meanwhile 'the stormy winds do blow' off west Cornwall, making the sea that much rougher, and making re-deployment of this device more difficult.

And the expensive Wave Hub sits on the sea floor with nothing connected to it, gathering barnacles!

Reply to
Chris Hogg

There is something down the bottom of Islay near Portnahaven which you can see on Google Maps/Earth - a mile or so North along the coast.

You can see some infrastructure there in a bay by the sea. IIRC it was described on the signs as wave power but could have been tidal. We went to have a look but there was an unmade road and not much else visible - we didn't go to the bottom to investigate further.

says "Further round the coast to the west, at Claddach, is Islay's wave-power station, a concrete structure set down into the low cliffs, feeding several hundred kilowatts to the national electricity grid."

says (long quote) "Wave Power on Islay and now also on Lewis Tuesday, August 08 2006

In 2002 Scotlands first wave power station became in operation on Islay. The plant is located near Portnahaven. So far the Islay plant was the only one in Scotland but today was announced that Lewis, one of the Scottish Western Isles, will get a similar wave power station. The power station, on the island of Islay, is the product of years of research into how to effectively harvest energy from the world's oceans. The UK was one of the world's leaders in developing wave power until a series of setbacks coupled with a lack of funding scuppered promising projects following initial enthusiasm in the late 1970s. But supporters of the wave power project believe that with climate change in the headlines, the timing could not be better.

How it works The Islay wave power generator was designed and built by Wavegen and researchers from Queen's University in Belfast and has financial backing from the European Union. Known as Limpet 500 (Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer), it will feed 500 kilowatts of electricity into the island's grid. Limpet was born out of a 10-year research project on the island where the team had built a demonstration plant capable of generating 75 Kilowatts of electricity. The power generator consists of two basic elements: A wave energy collector A generator to turn this into electricity The energy collector comprises a sloping reinforced shell built into the rock face on the shoreline with an inlet big enough to allow seawater to freely enter and leave a central chamber. As waves enter the shell chamber, the level of water rises, compressing the air in the top of the chamber. This air is then forced through a "blowhole" and into the "Wells Turbine", designed by Professor Alan Wells of Queen's University. The turbine has been designed to continue turning the same way irrespective of the direction of the airflow. As the water inside the chamber recedes as the waves outside draw back, the air is sucked back under pressure into the chamber, keeping the turbine moving. This constant stream of air in both directions, created by the oscillating water column, produces enough movement in the turbine to drive a generator which converts the energy into electricity. But is it viable? Wavegen says that there could be sufficient recoverable wave power around the UK to generate enough power to exceed domestic electricity demands. Furthermore, renewable energy supporters say some research suggests that less than 0.1% of the renewable energy within the world's oceans could supply more than five times the global demand for energy - if it could be economically harvested. That would probably involve large-scale wave plants in near-shore or off-shore environments, a technology still being developed. However, large-scale on-shore wave power generating stations could face similar problems to those encountered by some windfarm projects, where opposition has focused on the aesthetic and noise impact of the machinery on the environment. Wave power supporters say that the answer lies not in huge plants but in a combination of on-shore generation and near-shore generation (using a different technology) focused on meeting local or regional needs. On-shore or near-shore plants, they argue, could also be designed as part of harbour walls or water-breaks, performing a dual role for a community."

Reply to
David

Avoiding answering hte 'is it viable' question means no

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I recall them doing the CD...

Andy

Reply to
Vir Campestris

Guess all the subsidies are going to wind , to not generate...

2 wave power companies hit skids in same month that Scottish "government" claim its the next big thing..

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Reply to
Adam Aglionby

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