Scotland’s pioneer wave station in the offing

An application to build a pioneering wave energy plant has been put forward by RWE Innogy. The station is to be built off the coast of Scotland in Siadar Bay on the Isle of Lewis and is expected to have a power generation capacity of four thousand kilowatts. There being no obstacles, building of the station is scheduled to start next year.

The Chief Operating Officer of RWE Innogy, Kevin McCullough, expressed confidence that the technology they would be deploying held promise. Npower is the RWE Innogy unit that is charged with coordinating the project.

The difference between a tidal power plant and a wave power station is that a wave power station does not depend on the differences in height between outgoing tide and flood tide to generate power but instead it is the continuous kinetic energy of the waves that generate the electricity. The system works through a process which involves trapping air which in the end is used to turn a turbine which generates electricity. The power generation capacity of the plant will be sufficient to meet the electricity requirements of around one thousand five hundred households.

RWE Innogy, which is the unit in the RWE Group which focuses on renewable energies, is planning to put up an average of one billion Euros annually to expand its renewable energy production capacity. The sources of renewable energy that will be targeted include biomass, wind and water. RWE Innogy will increase its existing power generation capacity from renewable sources to four and a half gigawatts in four years’ time.