Portugal is making a big push to become a world leader in the
implementation of alternative energy and yesterday took a big step
forward in the commercial use of wave power for electrical generation.
Three red snake like devices were installed three miles off the coast
of Aguçadoura, in northern Portugal, and began articulating with the
ocean movement to great electricity. The three units (video available
here)
will generate enough energy to support about 1,000 homes. At peak
output, the devices (made by Pelamus Wave power in Edinburgh, Scotland)
will generate 2.25MW of power, or enough electricy to supply 2,500
homes. The plan is to expand the field to 25 wave power generators
producing 21MW of power.
"The future of wave energy starts today," said Manuel Pinho, Portugal's economics minister. "Renewable energy is the source of energy for the future and we think this can create an industrial revolution and a lot of opportunities for jobs and research and we want to be ahead of the curve."
In
addition to this flagship wave power, the Portuguese are investing
heavily in other renewable technologies. They are already spending
£250m on more than 2,500 solar photovoltaic panels to build the world's
largest solar farm near the small town of Moura in eastern Portugal. It
will have twice the collecting area of London's Hyde Park and supply
45MW of electricity each year, enough to power 30,000 homes.
In the past three years, the country has also trebled its hydroelectric
capacity and quadrupled its wind power sources – northern Portugal has
the world's biggest wind farm with more than 130 turbines and a factory
that builds the 40m-long blades.
Pinho wants Portugal to rival Denmark or Japan in its commitment to
developing renewables industries – he predicts his country will
generate 31% of all its power from clean sources by 2020, compared with
Britain's target of 15%. The Portuguese target means increasing the
generation of electricity from renewable sources from 20% in 2005 to
60% in 2020.( Link)
I wrote about a competing wave power technology called "the Anaconda" a couple months ago. Whereas the Pelamus device is composed of multiple rigid sections independently articulating and generating electricity, the still being developed Anaconda is a flexible structure that generates electricity as wave motion passes through it (think traditional hydrodam technology). Whereas the Pelamus system can generate electricity at about $13/watt, the Anaconda technology is predicted to produce the power at a little over $4/watt.
Comments