WAVE POWER INNOVATION IS TAKEN UP BY ECOTRICITY
Green energy company, Ecotricity, is broadening its
renewable energy stable by adding the power of the sea.
The Gloucestershire-based business is developing a radical wave
power device called Searaser, which it believes can address two of
the biggest barriers to the deployment of renewable energy on the
scale that Britain needs - cost and variable output.
Searaser is the brainchild of Devon engineer, Alvin Smith, and it
harnesses the power of ocean swells to create electricity.
The announcement coincides with moves by the Department of Energy
and Climate Change to make the South West of England the silicon
valley of marine energy technology.
Ecotricity founder, Dale Vince, said: 'Our vision is for
Britain's electricity needs to be met entirely from the big three
renewable energy sources - the wind, the sun and the sea.
Until now the sea has been the least viable of those three energy
sources and we believe that Searaser will change all of that.
Indeed, we believe Searaser has the potential to produce
electricity at a lower cost than any other type of energy, not just
other forms of renewable energy but all conventional forms of
energy too.'
Inventor Alvin Smith said the main barrier to making wave power
efficient and therefore cost-effective was resilience against the
hostile ocean environment. He said: 'Most existing wave
technologies seek to generate electricity in the sea itself. But as
we know water and electricity don't mix - and sea water is
particularly corrosive - so most other devices are very expensive
to manufacture and maintain. But Searaser doesn't generate
the electricity out at sea. It simply uses the motion of the ocean
swell to pump seawater through an onshore generator.'
Searaser pumps seawater using a vertical piston between two buoys -
one on the surface of the water, the other suspended underwater and
tethered to a weight on the seabed. As the ocean swell moves the
buoys up-and-down the piston works like a bicycle pump to send
volumes of pressurised seawater through a pipe to an onshore
turbine to produce electricity.
This opens up the additional option for Searaser units to be used
to supply energy on-demand. By pumping seawater into coastal
storage reservoir, it can be released through a generator as
required - thus making not just energy from the sea but energy that
can be turned on and off as required. Such a system will go a long
way to solving the problem of renewable energy's naturally
intermittent output on Britain's electricity grid.
Ecotricity's move into wave power comes as the government and the
Crown Estate make changes that they hope will encourage more
development of wave-power in Britain.
Energy and climate change minister, Greg Barker, said: 'Marine
energy is a real priority for the coalition government. It's
great news that Ecotricity are now making waves in marine power
with their plans for SEARASER. The UK leads the world in developing
marine energy technology and it's vital that the sector continues
to bring forward innovative new technologies. Marine energy
is becoming an increasingly attractive investment for businesses,
not least because we are proposing more than a doubling of
financial support to the sector through the ROCs scheme.'
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