SeaGen Tidal System’s installation in progress

The planet’s first deep-water apparatus to produce tidal electricity on a large scale is due to begin operating in a matter of weeks.

An ocean-going crane barge has laid the double turbine weighing a thousand tonnes in place and an operation to fasten it to the seabed using twelve metre pins has already begun.

The SeaGen Tidal System at Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland, is fabricated to generate adequate electricity that can power a thousand households.

The SeaGen Tidal System, which has been made by Marine Current Turbines, possesses two sixteen-metre blades which will be rotated by the water coursing in and out of Strangford Lough at up to a speed of eight knots.

The managing director of Marine Current Turbines, Martin Wright, disclosed that by mid-May they will have finished the greater part of commissioning and full commissioning should take place by July. He added that if the project turned out to be a success they would embark on building a tidal farm off the Anglesey coast sometime in 2010 or 2011.

Strangford Lough and Anglesey are among the most suitable sites for generation of tidal energy because of the velocity and strength of the tidal stream coursing in and out. But the one location of tidal energy which specialists consider the most precious and sought after is the Pentland Firth, flanked by the Orkney Isles and mainland Scotland, where up to three million tonnes of water flows through a restricted area of sea every other second. Once the technology to fully exploit the site sees the light of day the tidal electricity generated there could meet up to fifteen per cent of Britain’s electricity requirements.

www.seageneration.co.uk