Northern Ireland set to have tidal power

Tidal power has come to Northern Ireland yesterday as SeaGen was laid down in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland.

The world’s first and biggest commercial scale tidal stream energy generator weighs in at a phenomenal 1000 tonnes and has a width of 43 metres from end to end.

The tidal generator’s makers, Marine Current Turbines, have stated that this form of tidal power could potentially supply up to 10% of the UK’s total energy within the next ten years.

The generator, which has been said to look like an underwater upturned windmill, represents a green alternative to energy generators run with fossil fuels. It will operate by harnessing the power of aggressive tidal currents.

SeaGen does this with two rotating blades, driven by a gear box system, that turn at 14 revolutions a minute. Peter Franklin, the engineer, designed a concept that means that the rotars drive the generator which then sends energy along a cable which is then linked up to the National Grid across the Stangford lough.

Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines, Martin Wright, has stated that the generator is planned to supply up to 1000 homes in Northern Ireland within the next few months.

Yet plans for the generator exceed these humble beginnings. Wright spoke of the fact that if SeaGen in Stangford is a success then the next move would be to build a farm of the turbines off the coast of Anglesey, then all over Britain and potentially the world, from Canada to Indonesia.

Wright recognised the main obstacle as being not proving that the technology works but finding locations with tides that are aggressive and can be linked to the National Grid. This is alongside finding that there is the political backing to use this kind of green and clean energy and that an agreement with local objectors can be made.

Firstly the generator’s impact on the local environment and wildlife needs to be calculated. David Irwine, a local conservationist, has described Strangford Lough as an extremely important area of marine life in Europe, perhaps even the world.

Irwine is set to head an environmental monitoring unit overseeing the project and will spend five years studying SeaGen to see if it is environmentally friendly. In order to ensure that this scrutiny is undertaken correctly a total two and a half million pounds has been put up to look at SeaGen’s impact upon marine life in Stangford Lough.

Once the project has been deemed safe the system can be used worldwide potentially reducing not just the UK’s carbon emissions, but emissions the world over.

SeaGen is being built at Belfast’s Harland and Wolff’s shipyards, the same shipyards that produced the Titanic. It will take 14 days to install and is set to be bolted onto the lough’s bed.