A company I have followed closely for well over a year now, Marine Current Turbines, has won the (UK) Renewable Energy Association’s Developer of the Year Award. The award recognized MCT's successful design, deployment and operation of its uber-innovative 1.2MW SeaGen tidal current energy system.

Installed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough last year, SeaGen, the world’s first commercial-scale tidal current energy system is now generating power into the local grid at a peak capacity of 1.2 megawatts.

Martin Wright, Managing Director of Marine Current Turbines said, “This award, voted by the UK renewables industry, recognises the efforts and commitment of our engineering and project development teams." Martin, who received the award at a ceremony in London added, "the development and deployment of SeaGen has been challenging and we have still have work to do in order to deploy our technology on a commercial basis but the REA Award underlines the belief, shared across the industry, that tidal energy can and will make a meaningful contribution to the UK energy market in the coming years.”

SeaGen's success in the UK narrows hasn't gone unnoticed in North America. Marine Current Turbines is currently testing it's tidal power turbine system in Canada's Bay of Fundy.

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The last time I wrote about the SeaGen project I got more than a couple of emails from friends and readers who were skeptical about the claims that the 16 meter-long turbine blades spinning on these machines could be environmentally benign (watch an animation of the turbines in action). The comments I received used such colorful language as "bassomatic" and "Irish Cuisinart" to describe the tidal power turbines.

I've yet to read over the reports myself, but it is my impression that researchers have no indications that the turbines would be harmful to marine life because the speed at which the rotors sweep (you may register to download the reports here).The final Environmental Impact Study was submitted to the regulatory authority, the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) in Northern Ireland in June 2005 and the license for the temporary installation for the SeaGen system for a five year duration was first issued in December 2005.

Researchers will be adopting an approach commonly referred to as 'adaptive management', whereby, the environmental impact of SeaGen will be continuously monitored by the team throughout the licensed 5 year installation period. The project is being managed by Royal Haskoning with Queens University Belfast and the Sea Mammal Research Unit.

It seems to me that the SeaGen could be a very expensive test run, if it turns out the turbines are indeed ecologically problematic.

Related Posts:

"World's First Commercial-Scale Tidal Power Turbines"
"Animation: SeaGen Tidal Power Turbine"

[Photos are courtesy of Taylor Keough Communications, please contact me via email if you'd like larger/higher resolutions images and I will pass them along].

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