Nova Innovation successfully delivers electricity from tidal energy
Scottish company Nova Innovation has successfully produced and delivered power to the grid from a pair of 100kW tidal turbines in the waters of the Shetland Islands.
According to Nova Innovation, a group chaired by former big-six energy company boss Ian Marchant, its project marked an advance in what has long promised to be an important source of renewable energy.
The company is developing the project in the Bluemull Sound, between the Shetland islands of Yell and Unst, with Belgian renewable energy group Elsa. The company also said the two-unit Bluemull installation is the “first offshore tidal array in the world to deliver electricity to the grid”.
Its move comes as the first phase of a MeyGen, a larger tidal power scheme, nears completion in the Pentland Firth between the Scottish mainland and the Orkney Islands.
Nova first announced in March that it was exporting power from a device in the seabed that looks a little like a wind turbine. It has now successfully connected a second one to create an offshore tidal array.
The project’s total value is £3.6million. It is also due to get another three turbines by the end of next year. Once finished, it will supply enough electricity for about 300 houses.
The sea power station is small compared with the huge offshore wind farms that dot the UK coastline, generating power for thousands of households.
The predictable nature of tides has long offered the promise of clean electricity at reliable rates. Other companies have been trying to develop a different type of tidal energy, harvesting power from tides that rush into a bay or lagoon.
According to the UK government’s estimates, as much as 12% of the UKs electricity could eventually come from projects taking advantage of the country’s fast-flowing tides. But progress has been slowed by the high costs and technical challenges being faced by the industry.
A £1-billion tidal lagoon project proposed for Swansea stalled this year after ministers balked at the subsidies developers was seeking.
The government has launched a review of tidal lagoon power headed by former UK energy minister Charles Hendry, which is due to be published later this year.