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Power

'World's Most Powerful Tidal Turbine' Starts To Export Power To the Grid (cnbc.com) 111

Posted by BeauHD from the harnessing-the-power-of-the-ocean dept.
A tidal turbine weighing 680 metric tons and dubbed "the world's most powerful" has started grid-connected power generation at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, an archipelago located north of mainland Scotland. CNBC reports: In an announcement Wednesday, Scottish engineering firm Orbital Marine Power explained how its 2 megawatt O2 turbine had been anchored in a body of water called the Fall of Warness, with a subsea cable linking it to a local electricity network on land. It's expected that the turbine, which is 74 meters long, will "operate in the waters off Orkney for the next 15 years," the company said, and have "the capacity to meet the annual electricity demand of around 2,000 UK homes."

The turbine is also set to send power to a land-based electrolyzer that will generate so-called green hydrogen. In a statement, Orbital Marine Power's CEO, Andrew Scott, described Wednesday's news as "a major milestone for the O2." Funding for the O2's construction has come from public lenders via Abundance Investment. The Scottish government has also provided £3.4 million (around $4.72 million) of support through its Saltire Tidal Energy Challenge Fund. Looking to the future, Orbital Marine Power said it was "setting its sights" on the commercialization of its tech via the deployment of multi-megawatt arrays.
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'World's Most Powerful Tidal Turbine' Starts To Export Power To the Grid More

'World's Most Powerful Tidal Turbine' Starts To Export Power To the Grid

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  • I seem to remember an episode of Doctor who (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @10:17PM (#61632661)
    Where the plot was an alien species was being exploited for the sake of power generation and at the end the doctor just kind of casually suggests then instead of exploiting the alien species (whom the doctor had already saved) to get the power they need that the civilization utilizes tidal forces. I thought it was funny the way he completely changed the course of an entire civilization with a single line and then the episode ended there.
    • First I ever heard of tidal power generators was playing Total Annihilation. They seem like they would be extremely expensive to install and maintain, but maybe with an economy of scale that wouldn't be the case.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        They seem like they would be extremely expensive to install and maintain

        They are indeed. This was a pilot program designed to suck up government money. In a windy place like the Orkneys, some wind turbines would have made way more sense.

        Additionally, tidal power is very detrimental to the environment. The best sites are in estuaries which are biological hotspots.

        "Tidal power" makes about as much sense as "green hydrogen". This project includes both.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Gonoff ( 88518 )

          ...some wind turbines would have made way more sense.

          Thanks, the last time I heard a figure, Orkney produced 125% of its electrical needs from wind power and "they" have said that the link to the UK national grid is maxed out and will not be getting upgraded. In fact, that is the reason the power will be used to generate hydrogen.

          • In fact, that is the reason the power will be used to generate hydrogen.

            Which is currently use for energy storage - as everyone loves to point out, wind and tides are intermittent.

            They are also converting the APU on the current car ferry to hydrogen power, and getting used to handling hydrogen in a marine environment.. They also plan to build a new fuel-cell powered ferry - the design contract has just been awarded [orcadian.co.uk].

            We are going to need something to replace diesel for ships, and fuel-cells powered by green hydrogen is one possibility. You've got to start somewhere.

            • wind and tides are intermittent.

              OTOH, tidal power much more predictably intermittent. I can go to a Met Office website and download the tide tables for any harbour in the the UK for the next year, and from that deduce the power availability from the tide that far in advance.

              We are going to need something to replace diesel for ships

              Most ships run on something much nastier than diesel - bunker oil. That stuff needs phasing out ASAP. But it's very cheap, which is why your average container ship loaded with con

        • This was a pilot program designed to suck up government money.

          Herp derp.

          In a windy place like the Orkneys, some wind turbines would have made way more sense.

          It's also got very high tides, 2.5 meters, which makes it a great place to test the tech.

          Additionally, tidal power is very detrimental to the environment. The best sites are in estuaries which are biological hotspots.

          You're thinking of tidal barrages not undersea turbines. This is Orkney, it's got a bunch of tidal channels. Unless you're thinking of

        • It's a prototype that has a key advantage over wind - it is 100% predictable. The tides follow an unchanging schedule so you know exactly when power will be available. That's rather handy in some places where you can schedule things to coincide with the availability of tidal power.

          Obviously wind will be the bulk of generation, there is so much of it off the British coast, but that doesn't mean this technology isn't valuable for certain applications.

        • You are an idiot. As always.
          Perhaps you want to read up before accusing them to 'have sucked up governments funds.

          Especially as they put the thing at a perfect place. And: unlike wind turbines in a storm: they work 16h a day. All year long.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Location, location, location. You need big tides, so lots of water trapped against a continent, piling it up, as the sun and or moon, pull on the water, well pull on the entire planet but the water moves more readily. Now if you are drawing power from tidal water forces, you are slowing water and putting energy into planet but energy would go into planet anyhow, pushing against land, generating energy that you do not use, so no change.

        Not many locations, it needs to be near coast, lots of marine life, prob

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

          that is why it is not everywhere.

          The environmental damage is only one reason tidal power isn't used.

          Other reasons are:

          1. Tides are intermittent, and the cycle shifts by 40 minutes per day, so even the intermittency is intermittent.

          2. Limited deployment sites.

          3. Lots of maintenance problems due to saltwater corrosion of metal parts.

          4. Expensive.

          • Re: I seem to remember an episode of Doctor who (Score:5, Informative)

            by Malc ( 1751 ) on Thursday July 29, 2021 @02:19AM (#61633125)

            Tides are indeed intermittent and variable, but they are entirely predictable. Unlike wind. Tides aren't slack at the same time everywhere either. The UK gets a lot of power from wind (43% [templar.co.uk] as I write this), but just 10 days ago when an area of high pressure sat over the UK for a week, the UK was importing more power from France than it was generating from wind. This isn't a factor with tidal. The UK benefits from large tides too, with places like the " Bristol Channel/Severn Estuary having one of the greatest tidal ranges in the world. So if tidal power will work, the UK is one of the most likely places to use it.

            • Tides aren't slack at the same time everywhere either.

              Nor are winds, they're always blowing somewhere and usually not so far away by modern standards. They may not be blowing anywhere on a tiny little island like England, though, which is just one more reason why they can't just give the EU the finger and exist all on their own.

              • You do talk some nonsense sometimes, donâ(TM)t you? What on earth has the UKâ(TM)s (not sure why you said âoeEnglandâ) relationship with the EU got to do with this? It is occasionally a net exporter to three of itâ(TM)s neighbours. Furthermore, Scotland is smaller than England yet it tends to be a net exporter. If the EU stopped existing then nothing would change in terms of electricity imports and exports.

            • places like the " Bristol Channel/Severn Estuary["]

              isn't a terribly good comparison with the Pentland Firth, because the "Bristol Channel/Severn Estuary" is closed at one end (the Severn end) and has an input of fresh water there (and form the Usk, and various other rivers, depending on where you want to build your generating plant) ; in contrast, the Pentland firth is open sea at both ends. It gets it's tidal energy (and therefore "interesting times" currents) because high (low) tide at one end is at a di

          • "The environmental damage is only one reason tidal power isn't used" - its new and still under development is why "its not used", any mechanical device creates "environmental damage", not really much different (but probably a lot better and cleaner) to oil rigs out at sea.
            "1. Tides are intermittent,...." - eh? they are completely predictable
            "2. Limited deployment sites." - so? adds to the ways of generating power, the more the merrier. Its great for islands like Orkey
            "3. Lots of maintenance..." - possi

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by amorsen ( 7485 )

              680 tons of material to create 2MW of power.

              Even if optimizations make this figure 10 times better, it would still be woefully uncompetitive with wind or solar (even in Orkney).

              If this is the state of the art of tidal power, it is a total loss.

              • Most of that mass being iron and concrete, things we aren't exactly in short supply of.

                Not sure why mass is even a relevant factor worth considering. It's almost like you're desperate to justify not liking it...
                =Smidge=

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Maybe you are confusing this with tidal lagoons. It's not that, this is basically a boat that has a couple of turbines which sit under the surface, so not unlike the screws on a normal water craft. The effect on the environment will be pretty minimal.

          • All points basically wrong.
            Except for intermittent- which is however completely irrelevant

            Care to explain 'environmental damage'? Dumb ass?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hey! ( 33014 )

            Intermittency is not such a big deal if you have something to store the energy in, like a battery. In this case, they're making hydrogen.

          • "1. Tides are intermittent, and the cycle shifts by 40 minutes per day, so even the intermittency is intermittent."

            Yes, those turbines work both ways and we know exactly beforehand when the tide will be how high years in the future.

            "2. Limited deployment sites."

            Yes, Austria and Luxembourg are fucked, no ocean.

            "3. Lots of maintenance problems due to saltwater corrosion of metal parts."

            Ever heard of stainless steel?
            Or 'ships'?

            "4. Expensive."

            Sure, but unlike a nuclear operation, you'll get all sorts of insuran

      • First I ever heard of tidal power generators was playing Total Annihilation.

        For me, it was the first time I read Skylark Three [wikipedia.org], the second book in E.E. Smith's classic Skylark series.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Visit Eling [elingexperience.co.uk] outside Southampton for a historic perspective on tidal water energy.

  • You never win against nature (Score:5, Funny)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @10:26PM (#61632683)
    Oh great. Now we're going to slow the Earth down and have longer days. What's next?

    • Makes the four day work week an even better idea, and we can get rid of leap year along with daylight savings time

    • We already thought of that which is why Elon has agreed to strap some rockets to Earth and let 'em rip to speed up the spin. The hard part is timing it just right so that we don't spin Earth too fast and fly off it before the tidal turbine kick in.

    • You would need an incredible amount of energy sucked out of the system to impact rotation of the earth with even a millisecond

    • Oh great. Now we're going to slow the Earth down and have longer days. What's next?

      does that mean we can get the long evenings of daylight savings without messing about with clocks? And also get a lie-in every day?

      I'm in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sidetrack ( 4550 )

      That's fine, I have a 25 hour body clock anyway, and it'll eventually sync us up with the Martians.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Chiny ( 839355 )
      Next... negative leap seconds. Hmm, we have not had another positive leap second for a while, so these tidal turbines may already be having an effect.

  • Power output over time, in salt water? (Score:3)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @11:23PM (#61632783)

    Solar and wind output diminishes over time due to environmental wear on exposed parts. It will be interesting to see how well this stands up over similar times.

    Push it, break it, improve it. Rinse & repeat => progress

  • 72 Million total for 15 years? A few stupid wind mills will pull in more.
    It's a money grab.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      What do you suppose the ROI for wind and solar was a few decades ago? The change in cost from then to now didn't happen by accident! The reason the cost curve [google.com] came down over time is because we've built a lot of them, which means 1) we've done a lot of learning [google.com] and 2) we've developed economies of scale. This is the first tidal generation plant of its kind - a demonstration project / pilot plant. If it pans out, expect cost to come down.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Bullshit. This is a working, to-scale prototype. If it performs, then this thing gets industrialized and becomes a lot cheaper. Running such an installation for a few years before spending the money on the industrialization is completely standard procedure.

      So, no, it is not a "money grab". It is just how innovation actually works.

  • Big Energy is desperate to find solutions that keep them in power. The alternative is that individuals and small entities generate their own power and leave Big Energy out of the picture.

    As a result we are seeing massive wind farms, solar arrays and now these silly 'tidal turbines' that will require massive taxpayer maintenance support before their inevitable failure due to maintenance costs.

    What about rooftop solar? Sorry, that gives power to the people and takes it from Big Energy. It must be taxed or dim

    • What about rooftop solar?

      Solar installations on preexisting roofs cost about twice as much per installed watt as grid-scale solar. Wind is even cheaper.

      If you want solar on your roof, feel free. But tax dollars shouldn't be subsidizing inefficient solutions.

    • I'm a pretty vocal advocate for renewable energy, and in particular the democratizing effect it has because anyone with the space to do so can build their own power generation infrastructure.

      But even I will be quick to point out that rooftop solar is only even an option to a fraction of the human population, and can never even come close to meeting all our energy needs.

      > It must be taxed or diminished in any way the legislators can arrange

      Are you, by any chance, from Australia? 'cause that might explain

  • £200 / MWh (Score:4, Informative)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Thursday July 29, 2021 @12:22AM (#61632917)
    Does not seem cost-effective under any conditions except as a technology demonstration. Hard to find much data on what the US would call the "bussbar" cost of electricity, but I can see the Hinkley Point C reactor selling power for half that. The bussbar rate in California today is hovering around $75/MWh
    • Good points. The follow on questions that really should be covered are: 1.) As this is (largely) a tech demonstration, what would be the timeframe on being able to scale the approach to actually bring costs in line? What do economies of scale look like, here? 2.) Does this system provide an improvement in reliability over existing green technologies, or have another advantage that really benefits it?

    • Re: £200 / MWh (Score:4, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday July 29, 2021 @06:47AM (#61633429) Homepage Journal

      That's what it is, a technology demonstration. However £200/MWh is not all that bad for certain parts of the UK because they require expensive infrastructure to get power there or diesel generation.

      Hinkley C is currently at well over half that and rising. But again, that's just the price to shift the electrons, you also need to factor in the cost of getting it where it's needed. For some places a local generator at £200/MWh will be significantly cheaper.

    • The price of generating electricity in California is not relevant to consumers in Orkney. The main problem in Orkney is already the capacity of the cable to the mainland, so capacity in Somerset doesn't help.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      This is a to-scale prototype. If it performs for a few years, then there will be incentives to look into mass production. This is a completely standard approach.

  • How does this compare on CO2 emissions in tons/GWh?
    Safety in deaths per TWh?
    Levelized cost of energy in dollars/MWh?
    Mass of material needed in tons/TWh?
    Energy return on energy invested?
    Area required in watts/m2?
    Total capital cost if used as part of a replacement for fossil fuels in a national energy plan?
    Here's some links to show how many others compare:
    https://world-nuclear.org/info... [world-nuclear.org]
    https://ourworldindata.org/saf... [ourworldindata.org]
    https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org]
    https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
    http://www.withouthotair [withouthotair.com]

  • Title is wrong (Score:3)

    by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Thursday July 29, 2021 @06:56AM (#61633449) Homepage

    France has 10Mw tidal turbines in service since 1967.
    Different technology, but still, their claim is wrong.
    https://tethys.pnnl.gov/projec... [pnnl.gov]

  • Just eyeballing the numbers and making reasonable assumptions, let's say it puts out 2 million watts peak, 1 million average, that is at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, $100 an hour. If it is running 8,000 hours a year, it makes $800,000 a year. If you borrowed the money at 5%, it had better not cost more than $10 million or so to build and not more than $300,000 a year to run and maintain. And if it lasts 15 years that is another $666,000 a year you lose just in making rust. Unlikely to be a financial win

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      If you price a technology by numbers on the prototype, no technology looks good. Hence nobody with a clue does that.

  • Wow! I'm so impressed. Wait, who cares?

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