Renew On Line (UK) 29a

Extracts from the Jan-Feb 2001 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

7. Renewables Summit

The Renewable Summit 2000 conference on the ‘Commercial Opportunities in the Generation of Renewable’ held in London last Oct. provided a venue for a comparison of the state of play for a wide range of renewables and renewable related policies around the world- including various systems for trading green power. The latter included a novel internet based trading system, the California based Automated Power Exchange: see http://www.apx.com. Stephen Peake, who recently joined EERU at the OU from the UN Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, provided an overview of the state of play on the Kyoto mechanisms, noting that no Annex 1 (i.e. industrial) county has yet actually ratified the Kyoto accord.

From a UK perspective, the CWC Group Summit was the first major gathering after the DTI's announcement of the details of the Renewables Obligation (see earlier). In general, the DTI's proposed 3p/kWh buy out price was welcomed. Certainly, it was better then the 2p originally suggested. Together with the proposed capital grants, it would just about be enough to get some new offshore wind projects going, and landfill gas projects were said to be likely to go ahead at a selling price of around 4p/kWh. However, it was reported that the waste combustion lobby was outraged (‘incandescent’ one person said) at the DTI's proposal to exclude waste combustion from the Renewables Obligation.

On the international front, one of the strongest presentations was from Blue Energy in Canada. They provided an update on their ‘tidal fence’ technology (see Renew 128). A 500kW pre-commercial demonstration project, using two of their standard 250kW ‘Davis’ vertical axis Turbine modules, was being installed at Sonora Island, off the coast of British Columbia, and should be operational by 2002. They see these 250kW ‘Haida Gwali’ units as being relevant to many esturine and river flow contexts, with tidal bridges being one option (see figure) and are setting up an automated manufacturing plant to build the caisson structures for mass production. Phase Two of the Sonora project would demonstrate the use of this system to generate hydrogen for a 250kW fuel cell.

Meanwhile, work was progressing on their major 2.2 GW (peak) ocean energy project - the Dalpuri tidal fence project in the Phillipines. A 50 MW prototype plant should be in place by 2003, after which, if funding was agreed, they would start on the installation of the full scale 4km long tidal fence - with an array of 274 Davis turbines mounted three deep in a causeway between two islands, carrying road traffic. All being well, and assuming the funding arrangements were in place, it was expected to be completed by 2008, and operational by 2009 - at a cost of $2.79bn.

A big project, and one with some obvious technical, financial and environmental uncertainties, given its novelty. But a 100kW version was tested in a hydro plant in the 1980's, and, as with all tidal systems, although cyclic, the power output in highly predictable. According to Blue Energy, there would be very little environmental impact from the tidal fence. It isn't a barrage, it's a permeable fence, so there is no inundation of land behind it as with hydro plants. And, since the turbine blades rotate slowly, fish can pass through easily.

Even so, the location of the vertical axis turbines in ducted structures should give them a significant efficiency advantage over free standing turbines - since the flow is concentrated.

Blue Energy have been looking at potential sites worldwide - including the UK. They seem to think the Severn estuary might be suitable, even given its relatively low tidal flow speeds. 1m/s was seen as acceptable - much lower than for most other systems. We wish them luck! For details see http://www.bluenergy.com

Green Conversions  - Industry sees the light

Green Future issue 24 (Sept 2000) had an account of the conversion of the giant energy company ABB to the idea of locally embedded ‘micropower’ using smaller scale dispersed renewables, fuels cells and CHP (see Renew 127). ABB was one of the companies behind the giant hydro project at Bakun in Malaysia (see Renew 125) but now, a senior ABB manager told Green Energy, ‘I do not see a scenario where we would be involved in a Bakun dam today, or in the future.’ ABB had already got out of nuclear power and seems to be joining the growing list of companies who have seen the green light. Although it is still worth remembering that, as Greenpeace noted ‘their clean power investment is still just one-third of a percent of their annual revenues.’

Green Future also highlight Fords green conversion. Bill Ford, the young green minded head of this giant car company, has launched a new green car push (see Renew 128) which had led other companies to join in.

He says ‘I love the fact that the environment has become a competitive issue, because who wins? The customer and the environment win.’ And of course also the company. As he put it ‘if we do not get this right, then we are going to be marginalised as a company and we are going to be marginalised as an industry.’ So its win-win-win all the way....to the bank?