RenewableEnergyAccess.com UK Continues Energy Efforts into the Ocean: "UK Continues Energy Efforts into the Ocean
27 June 2006
This cross-section shows how a device installed by Wavegen on the Scottish island of Islay works. The Siadar scheme would use the same principle of using wave motion to move air through a turbine.
Photo: npower renewables

Berkshire, UK [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] A new chapter in the UK's search for a sustainable future has opened with the announcement of two new proposals for ocean energy research projects. One is an on-site wave energy project tapping the ocean's powerful swells as they make landfall, and the other, when completed, is a research center dedicated to energy research.

'So much has been said about using wave power to generate electricity, and those words are now beginning to be turned into actions.'

-- Bill Langley, npower renewables, Marine Development Engineer The wave power project would be located at Siadar on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The plan is a joint project between npower renewables1, one of the UK's largest renewable energy companies, and Wavegen2, a wave power company based in Inverness, owned entirely by the hydro equipment supplier Voith Siemens Hydro since 2005.

The development would consist of building a new breakwater similar in appearance to those frequently used around the UK coastline for the provision of harbor facilities. Where this breakwater differs is that, if developed, it would have a wave energy project built into it.

The companies involved say the location has fantastic potential if obstacles can be overcome -- the most significant of which is the availability of a connection to the electricity grid. Once operational, the project would harness power from the Atlantic's waves to generate up to 3 mega"