PRINCE OF WALES VISITS SEAGEN AT STRANGFORD LOUGH
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has visited Marine Current Turbines’ SeaGen, the world leading marine current and tidal stream technology that is deployed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough and generating power into the local grid on a daily basis.
HRH was greeted (May 13th) by Mr David Lindsay the Lord-Lieutenant for County Down and went on to meet Mrs Arlene Foster MLA Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Martin Wright Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), and Professor Peter Gregson DL President and Vice-Chancellor Queen’s University Belfast. The Queen’s Marine Research facility at Portaferry, on the shore of Strangford Lough, provides an operating and monitoring base for MCT and offers research assistance to the company in its operation of SeaGen.
His Royal Highness attended a short presentation on the SeaGen project from MCT’s Martin Wright and colleagues and then sailed out to the turbine to see the project in its operational environment.
Picture attached: Seeing SeaGen close up - HRH Prince Charles with Mrs Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s Minister of Enterprise, Trade & Investment.
Notes to Editors:
1. Marine Current Turbines Ltd (www.marineturbines.com) is based in Bristol, England. The company was established in 2000 and its principal corporate shareholders include BankInvest, Carbon Trust Investments, EDF Energy, ESB International, Guernsey Electricity, High Tide and Siemens Energy.
2. In September 2009, MCT was ranked the world’s top tidal energy company in The Guardian/Clean Tech Global 100 Survey and in June 2009 won Renewable Energy Developer of the Year in the UK Renewable Energy Association Annual Awards.
3. MCT’s 1.2MW SeaGen was deployed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough in April 2008; it has the capacity to generate power for the equivalent of about 1500 homes. It works in principle much like an “underwater windmill” with the rotors driven by the power of the tidal currents rather than the wind. The SeaGen turbine is subject to a rigorous monitoring programme imposed under its licensing conditions to ensure it does not threaten the marine life of Strangford Lough where it is located.
4. SeaGen is accredited by OFGEM as a UK power station and so is a recipient of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs).
5. Since February 2008, MCT has partnered RWE npower renewables on plans to develop a 10MW tidal farm in waters off Anglesey, north Wales and is working with Minas Bay Pulp & Paper to deploy a single SeaGen system in Canada’s Bay of Fundy.
6. In March 2010, MCT secured approval for a lease from The Crown Estate to deploy its SeaGen tidal current technology off Brough Ness, on the southern most tip of the Orkney Islands (South Ronaldsay) and north east of John O’Groats. The company plans to have its first phase of SeaGen tidal turbines deployed there during 2017 with the whole scheme operational by 2020.
Showing posts with label Prince Charles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prince Charles. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Industry News-Prince Charles calls for sustainability
Prince Charles delivered this years Dimbleby Lecture last night, titled “Facing the Future”.
Speaking on a wide range of topics, the overriding theme was sustainability, with the actions needed to avert environmental collapse.
Referring to an earlier speech in March, when he said there were "less than 100 months to act" to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change, he said there are now onely "96 months left".
He called for a new Age of Sustainability rather than our current "Age of Convenience" and a step change in our view of money and development.
Drawing similarities with the current financial crisis "Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts... so Nature's life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts we have built up there too," he said. "If we don't face up to this, then Nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust. And no amount of quantitative easing will revive it."
Combining practical measures with philosophical insights “So much, it seems to me, depends on how you define both “growth” and “prosperity.” Most would agree, I think, that the main result of progress should be less misery and more happiness. But in our modern situation these “ends” have become dangerously confused with the “means,” to the point where, now, wealth, innovation and growth have become the final goals.
They have become the destination, when they were only ever at best a vehicle for getting there.”
“It seems that through a drift of ethics, the direction of our economic system has ended up being an end in itself – an entity that must be grown,rather than directed and honed to reflect the aspirations of communities, human well-being and the limits of ecology.”
Prince Charles has been a long time advocate of sustainability, and the speech was well received by most in the media.
See a full copy of the speech here and for the next 7 days you can watch the lecture here.
Speaking on a wide range of topics, the overriding theme was sustainability, with the actions needed to avert environmental collapse.
Referring to an earlier speech in March, when he said there were "less than 100 months to act" to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change, he said there are now onely "96 months left".
He called for a new Age of Sustainability rather than our current "Age of Convenience" and a step change in our view of money and development.
Drawing similarities with the current financial crisis "Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts... so Nature's life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts we have built up there too," he said. "If we don't face up to this, then Nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust. And no amount of quantitative easing will revive it."
Combining practical measures with philosophical insights “So much, it seems to me, depends on how you define both “growth” and “prosperity.” Most would agree, I think, that the main result of progress should be less misery and more happiness. But in our modern situation these “ends” have become dangerously confused with the “means,” to the point where, now, wealth, innovation and growth have become the final goals.
They have become the destination, when they were only ever at best a vehicle for getting there.”
“It seems that through a drift of ethics, the direction of our economic system has ended up being an end in itself – an entity that must be grown,rather than directed and honed to reflect the aspirations of communities, human well-being and the limits of ecology.”
Prince Charles has been a long time advocate of sustainability, and the speech was well received by most in the media.
See a full copy of the speech here and for the next 7 days you can watch the lecture here.
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