POWER December 2016 - 55

RENEWABLES
1. Biggest barrage. The 12.7-kilometer Sihwa Lake tidal barrage
that came online in 2011 in South Korea houses a 400-meter-long tidal
power plant. Built to repurpose an unsuccessful freshwater reservoir
project for renewable power, at 254 MW, it is the world's largest ocean
power project to date. Courtesy: K-water
el Tidal partnership) that was outfitted with a T2 turbine. And in June
2016, Sustainable Marine Energy successfully installed four subsea
drilled rock anchors at its berth at EMEC, despite challenging tidal
flows. The achievement is a " world-first, " it said. The anchors will
now be used to moor its PLAT-O tidal energy platform, which is outfitted
with two Schottel instream turbines.
Tidal Kite. Although there is no lack of novel prototype concepts,
one stands out for its government backing. This year, Swedish firm
Minesto prepared to deploy a full-scale Deep Green " tidal kite " device
(Figure 3) in Wales by summer 2017, securing funding from the
Swedish Energy Agency and the European Union.
2. Sea monster. Scotrenewables Tidal Power's 2-MW SR2000
floating tidal power turbine was installed on its moorings at the European
Marine Energy Centre this October. The turbine uses SRTT, an integrated
tidal energy generator with two horizontal-axis turbines mounted just under
the sea surface on a floating hull platform. According to Scotrenewables,
this ensures that the generators capture tidal flows where they are
strongest, closest to the surface. Courtesy: Scotrenewables
Wave Power: Oscillating Opportunities
The wave power sector has seen a relatively stagnant period since
Pelamis Wave Power made history in 2008, when the world's first
commercial 2.25-MW wave energy farm using the company's snakelike
wave energy convertors was grid-connected off the Aguçadoura
coast in Portugal. Over the past two years, however, the global wave
power sector has seen significant crests and troughs.
In November 2014, Pelamis went into administration after being unable
to secure the level of additional funding required for continued
development of its technology. And while UK firm Aquamarine Power
made headlines in early 2015 for a successful demonstration of its Oyster
800 wave energy converter, just a few months later, it too was placed
into administration due to a lack of private sector support needed to
supplement public funding. The company was later dissolved.
On the technology front, wave energy converters show less design
convergence compared to tidal stream technologies, IRENA says.
However, it notes that " there is a tendency towards designing floating
point absorber systems for offshore applications. "
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neering firm Scotrenewables Tidal Power installed its 2-MW SR2000
floating turbine-the world's most powerful to date-on its moorings
at EMEC as part of site commissioning and testing (Figure 2).
In mid-2016, Nova Innovation and its Belgian partner delivered
power to the grid from the first two of three 100-kW M100 direct-drive
turbines planned for installation in Scotland's Bluemull Sound, claiming
it was the world's first commercial grid-connected tidal array.
In France, DCNS subsidiary OpenHydro followed suit, deploying
the first of two new turbines at EDF's Paimpol-Bréhat site. Sabella
SAS in July 2016, meanwhile, retrieved a full-scale grid-connected
1-MW D10 tidal turbine after a 12-month-long test that had it submerged
off the coast of Brittany.
Wales saw its own historic grid connection of a 400-kW DeltaStream
tidal stream device developed by Cardiff-based Tidal Energy in Ramsey
Sound, Pembrokeshire. The device has a gravity-based foundation that
will sit on the seabed under its own weight, eliminating the need to drill
or pile the 200-metric-ton, 18-m-tall structure to the seabed.
And in February 2015, Dutch tidal power firm Tocardo installed
three grid-connected T1 tidal turbines (a total 300 kW) in a Dutch
sea defense dike in cooperation with the Dutch Tidal Testing Center.
Later, in September 2015, it installed five T2 turbines (1.2 MW) in the
Dutch Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier.
Floating Platforms. In October 2015, Tocardo also announced
that it was successfully operating a grid-connected (with cables)
floating tidal energy platform (developed as part of the BlueTEC TexDecember
2016 | POWER
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POWER December 2016

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