Client News-MCT's SeaGen passes 1000 hours landmark

SEAGEN PASSES 1000 OPERATIONAL HOURS OF TIDAL CURRENT ENERGY AT STRANGFORD LOUGH

Wednesday, February 10th 2010

SeaGen, the world-leading prototype tidal energy turbine designed and deployed by Marine Current Turbines Ltd (MCT) has exceeded 1000 hours of operation in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. It is the first tidal current or wave energy system in the world to have achieved this milestone.

The 1.2MW tidal current turbine, the largest megawatt scale grid-connected marine renewable energy system in the world, has achieved a capacity factor of 66% and so far delivered 800MWh into the National Grid.

This high capacity factor means that the tidal turbine delivers energy on average at the same rate to be expected from a wind turbine of approximately twice the rated power. Furthermore, the output is totally predictable. This performance has exceeded expectations largely thanks to the intensity of the Strangford Lough tide race and MCT’s own conservative design predictions.

Martin Wright, Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines said: “We are delighted with SeaGen’s performance. Passing the 1000 hours mark is a great milestone which not only demonstrates the potential for tidal power, but will also help to reinforce confidence in extracting energy from the seas in the future.”

Since starting operation in late 2008, SeaGen’s operation has been limited by its licence conditions to daylight hours, and it is only since the autumn (2009) that SeaGen has operated automatically and without the presence of “marine mammal observers” on board. It was this change that has allowed a considerable increase in SeaGen’s operational hours.

The company is now preparing SeaGen for more intensive operation and it is hoped to gain consent for continuous “24/7” operation before the summer. In the next few weeks, MCT’s also plans to run SeaGen under supervision of specialists from DNV (Det Norsk Veritas), one of the world’s leading marine classification societies, to obtain independent verification of its performance.

Martin Wright added: “SeaGen is operating as it was designed to do. Crucially, the operational experience and data that we are gaining every day is hugely valuable as we work towards deploying the UK’s first tidal farm within the next two years. SeaGen is a commercial scale prototype and already we are incorporating into the design of the next machines subtle changes to improve maintainability and reliability which are vital for commercial generation.”

Last week (February 2nd), MCT secured £2.7m from the Carbon Trust’s Marine Renewables Proving Fund to support the company’s evaluation and operation of SeaGen as a precursor to the deployment of a tidal farm by MCT in UK waters.



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 and High Tide. The company has a power purchase agreement with Ireland’s ESB Independent Energy for SeaGen’s output.

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. 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. At present, SeaGen is still only permitted to operate in daylight hours and has to be continuously monitored by an observer on-shore using sonar to see that the marine life, in particular seals and porpoises, are not at risk from the 16m diameter twin rotors which rotate at about 14 rpm.

4. SeaGen is accredited by OFGEM as a UK power station and so is a recipient of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs).

Political News- Westminster Environmental Audit Comittee continue their report on Green Jobs and Skills

Today the Environmental Audit Committee continued their report into ‘Green Jobs and Skills’.

Hearing evidence from the Environment Industries Commission, The British Wind Energy Association, Repower-uk and Mainstream Renewable Power, the committee looked into what the government can, and should, be doing to promote ‘green jobs’, as well as how the UK can benefit from green industries.

The EIC regarded the governments position towards environmental industry jobs as ‘too narrow’ and felt that too much focus was on reducing carbon,with the UK lagging behind other countries. They told the committee that more time should be put into water quality and air quality, with road and transport emissions a prime area where government action has slipped.

The well known face of BWEA’s Gordon Edge gave the committee a positive picture of the governments funding arrangements, and praised the stability of the current RO’s scheme. Under the current arrangements, the UK is now the world leader in off-shore wind power.

However, Dr Desmond Turner, vice-chair of the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy group, felt that other technologies were being overlooked.With the UK having such abundant marine resources and a ‘delicate leadership’, tidal and marine technologies, such as Taylor Keogh clients Marine Current Turbines and AWS Ocean Energy, should be being invested in.

With ROCs for the developed technology of offshore wind now worth as much as emerging marine technologies. Dr Turner felt that the benefits of marine technologies would give 100% added value to the UK, unlike the offshore wind industry, where many components and turbines are manufactured abroad.

Dr Edge agreed that ROCs for marine technologies should be increased, but added that the marine energy sector is where the wind energy was in the 1980s and would not contribute highly to the 2020 renewable targets. Dr Turner reminded the committee that the UK was also a leader in wind technology in the 1980’s, before handing the manufacturing industry to Denmark and Germany, through negligence and lack of adequate funding.

Client News-Marine Current Turbines Seagen Tidal System First Marine Energy Project to Secure ROCS Accreditation

BUT MORE MUST BE DONE TO ENCOURAGE WAVE & TIDAL ENERGY IN THE UK

Bristol, England: The SeaGen tidal energy system, developed and deployed by Marine Current Turbines, has become the first–ever marine renewable energy project to be accredited by the UK energy regulator OFGEM for ROCs (Renewable Energy Certificates) and so will receive payment for the power it is generating. ROCs are the method by which the UK Government rewards the commercial generation of clean energy.

SeaGen, a 1.2MW twin turbine tidal energy system, was deployed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough in May 2008 and is generating power for the equivalent of about 1000 homes via the local grid.

Martin Wright, Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines said: “Securing ROCs accreditation is a significant step forward as it is the first time that a tidal current system has been officially recognised as a commercial power station. Up until now, marine renewable technologies have not gone beyond the R&D phase. SeaGen has changed all that.”

“SeaGen is now consistently producing full power to the grid and is performing just as we expected. At 1.2MW capacity, it is the world’s most powerful marine energy device of any kind to be grid connected, and has to date generated the most energy from the sea onto the grid.”

“We have had our challenges with the SeaGen project and we know that we still have much to do to ensure that our technology is deployed on a truly commercial basis. However, the ROCs accreditation is a positive signal that tidal energy will play a part in the country’s future energy mix.”

Whilst SeaGen is performing well, Marine Current Turbines is however seriously concerned that the current investment climate threatens the long-term future of the marine energy sector. The company, along with other parts of the marine energy sector, is therefore looking to the UK Government to adopt measures that will encourage new investment into the tidal and wave sectors.

Martin Wright said: “The Government’s forthcoming Renewable Energy Strategy Review is critical to clean-tech companies such as Marine Current Turbines. The current investment climate is the worst in living memory and following the announcement to increase the ROC multiple to 2 for offshore wind, there is effectively no market to pull marine energy forward. It will be vital that the government addresses this is in its Renewable Energy Strategy Review and takes urgent action. If not, there is a significant risk that tidal power will suffer the same fate that befell the British wind industry: no home-grown manufacturing and engineering jobs.”


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, ESB International, EDF Energy, Guernsey Electricity and Triodos Bank.

In September 2008, MCT was ranked in The Guardian/Library House Top 10 of European clean-tech firms and in June 2009 won Renewable Energy Developer
of the Year in the UK Renewable Energy Association Annual Awards.

2. SeaGen works by generating power from sea currents, using a pair of axial flow turbines driving generators through gearboxes using similar principles to wind generator technology.

The main difference is that the high density of seawater compared to wind allows a much
smaller system; SeaGen has twin 600kW turbines each of 16m diameter. The capture of kinetic energy from a water current, much like with wind energy or solar energy, depends on how many square meters of flow cross-section can be addressed by the system.

With water current turbines it is rotor swept area that dictates energy capture capability, because it is the cross section of flow that is intercepted which matters. SeaGen has over 400 square meters of rotor area which is why it can develop its full rated power of 1.2MW
in a flow of 2.4m/s (5 knots).

For more information contact

Paul Taylor, Taylor Keogh Communications: Paul@taylorkeogh.com/ +44 (0) 203 170 8465

or Martin Wright, Managing Director, Marine Current Turbines, +44 (0)7785 340671

Click here for more information on Marine Current Turbines

Client News - Evening Standard Marine Current Turbines

Tide is going out for marine energy around Britain’s coasts
Robert Lea18.06.09
It is exciting the most interest in the country's tidal systems since King Canute told the waves off the south coast to desist.

And the development of technology has led the Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond to declare that his country is set to become the Saudi Arabia of marine energy, such is the power resource off its shores.But while many think of marine energy as harnessing the power of the waves that crash into the coasts of Britain, those in the know in green energy believe it is the force of tidal currents where the real renewable power potential lies.

Some of the strongest tides in the world run through the Pentland Firth, the straits between John O'Groats and the Orkney Islands through which the North Atlantic rushes into the North Sea. It is here that a vast laboratory of competing technologies is to be set up to see how marine energy - tidal current or wave - might best be used.
But while waves are effectively second-hand wind power determined by meteorology, tidal currents are predictable and ever-present, dependent as they are on the gravitational pull of the moon.

The Pentland Firth is a particular pinchpoint squeezed between two land masses. Around the UK, there are other tidal "hotspots" in the Bristol Channel and around the Isle of Wight and Portland Bill, Dorset, as well as off Wales and Northern Ireland and in the Western Isles of Scotland.
Yet while offshore wind with all its unpredictabilities has taken off as the Government-backed green technology of the early 21st century, tidal has been left underdeveloped, underfunded and seemingly unloved. Those attempting to prove that it is tidal energy and not wind that has the greatest potential fear that a nascent industry may be strangled at birth.
Martin Wright of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), which has a commercially operational tidal energy installation in Northern Ireland that was assembled at Harland & Wolff in Belfast, explains: "If the problems were just technical, we'd be all right but we have had to fight for money every step of the way.

"This is potentially a very major, big-scale power technology but we are a cash-burning technology company operating in an environment where capital is not available."Wright says if it wasn't for companies like his putting £30 million of investors' money into proving the technology works, the Crown Estate could not have got to a position of selling off the seabed to marine energy companies - and MCT is as yet seeing no financial return.
"There has been a lot of talk about the green economy creating green companies and green jobs," he adds."We have the opportunity for the UK to be for marine energy what Denmark has been to wind energy. But the fact is companies like ours are currently operating on vapour."

Exacerbating the crisis are renewables obligation certificates (ROCs), the financial incentive scheme for green companies. Latest Government finessing has made the incentives available to wind companies on a par with marine companies.
"That," says Wright, "has had the unintended consequence of killing off the incentive to invest in marine for many investors who would rather put their money in the more developed wind industry."
Bill Law at Lunar Energy says there is also a problem with the incentives in Scotland where, although tidal energy receives the equivalent of three ROCs, wave energy is currently getting five. "We are in discussions with the Scottish Executive over this mismatch," says Law. "We've all got the same risks, so the playing field has to be levelled to enable all the technologies to develop."
Leading energy policy analyst Tony Lodge believes the industry is at a crossroads. "David Cameron heralded tidal power when he unveiled the Conservatives' Blue-Green Charter last year.
"He said tapping into this free, continually renewed energy source could provide us with up to 20% of our electricity needs, and he committed to making tidal power a priority, saying: 'The next Conservative government will put rocket boosters behind this area of research'.
"Though the current Government billed the recent Budget as a Budget for the Green Economy, the most reliable and predictable renewable - tidal - did not get a mention.
"How often do we hear 'we can lead the world with this home-grown technology', only to see its ingenuity embraced overseas?"
Battle to build tidal power stations
Several rival tidal current technologies are battling it out to win contracts to build what will be the country's biggest tidal energy installation in the Pentland Firth.
The straits between John O'Groats and the Orkneys are reckoned to be have among the strongest currents in the world as the North Atlantic rushes through into the North Sea.
The Crown Estate, which owns the coastal seabeds, has just received 20 bids offering to instal marine-energy gear in the Pentland Firth capable of producing 300 megawatts of electricity — enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.
One leading technology firm that aims to launch in the Pentland is Marine Current Turbines, which is already commercially operating an installation in the shallow but strong waters of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.
Looking like a mini-lighthouse above the water, MCT's SeaGen is effectively a submerged windmill driven by the flow of water.
Another much-heralded technology is that being produced especially for deep water by Lunar Energy, which is using North Sea oil and gas industry techniques to produce hardy seabed installations aiming to go to commercial trial off the Orkneys later in the year.
A ROC and a Hard Place
The incentives to get companies to build alternative energy projects are known as renewables obligation certificates, or ROCs.
They are handed out to clean-energy providers for every unit of power —megawatt/hour (MW/hr) — that a wind farm or a tidal turbine might produce.
The ROCs can then be traded, typically with polluting companies such as coal-fired power stations which have to buy ROCs commensurate with the amount of carbon dioxide they emit. In recent years, ROCs have been traded in this secondary market at an average of around £47 a ROC — a significant incentive, especially if multiple ROCs are on offer for every MW/hr generated as the current forward price of electricity is around £40 for every MW/hr produced.