MCT planning tidal energy farm

Kyle Rhea tidal energy advances as MCT plans four SeaGen tidal turbines delivering 5 MW for 4,000 homes, utilizing fast currents, pending Crown Estate lease and 2011 planning, boosting Scotland's marine renewables and grid integration.

Competition to install the first tidal energy farm in Scotland is heating up as UK tidal energy company Marine Current Turbines MCT announced plans to construct tidal turbines in the fast-flowing Kyle Rhea straits between the Isle of Skye and the Scottish mainland.

MCT is aiming to install four of the company's SeaGen tidal turbines at Kyle Rhea. The turbines will be capable of generating a total of 5 megawatts MW of electricity, enough power for approximately 4,000 homes, similar to a Scottish tidal project in Scottish waters. The fast tidal currents run through the site 14 hours a day. The estimated cost of the project will be £35 million US $55 million. Construction of the project is subject to securing a lease agreement from the Crown Estate, which manages the UK's seabed, under broader UK wave and tidal policy that frames such developments, and a full planning application will be made in 2011.

MCT is the second company to set its sights on Kyle Rhea this year, with rival Pulse Tidal revealing plans this summer to install its 1.2-megawatt MW Pulse Tidal device in the narrow, Kyle Rhea stretch, while Scottish Power tidal farm plans aim even larger elsewhere in Scotland. The company claimed that up eight Pulse Tidal devices could be linked together to produce a combined 9.6 MW. Overall, Kyle Rhea could have a potential capacity of up to 20 MW.

"Engagement with local interests is an important part of our work, and so far the response to our plans has been generally positive," said David Ainsworth, MCT's project manager for the Kyle Rhea project. "Our experience of working in Strangford Lough has been hugely valuable in taking forward our plans for Kyle Rhea and has helped assure people about the impacts of deploying our technology. Next year, we will hold a public exhibition in Glenelg, before our planning application is finalized, to give local people the opportunity to find out more about the project and the benefits that it will bring."

MCT already has experience in running shallow-water tidal energy projects. The company designed and installed the world's first commercial-scale offshore tidal stream energy system in Northern Ireland's Strangford Lough. There, a 1.2-MW SeaGen turbine has been supplying electricity to the UK grid, as OpenHydro's first UK grid power demonstrated earlier in the sector, since April 2008. In August, the turbine delivered its 2 millionth unit of electricity to the grid, while a powerful tidal turbine began pumping green electricity to the onshore grid elsewhere.

MCT is currently working with RWE npower renewables, a subsidiary of German energy company RWE AG, on a tidal energy project off the west coast of Wales, as Atlantis turbine test pushes size boundaries in parallel. The Skerries Tidal Stream Array will feature nine SeaGen turbines and will generate enough power to supply electricity to up to 10,000 homes.

Most recently, ESB International ESBI, a subsidiary of Ireland's state-owned Electricity Supply Board, and MCT joined forces to promote a major 100-MW tidal energy project off the coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, as Britain's first big tidal power signals growing momentum nationwide. Northern Ireland's Strategic Action Plan calls for 300 MW of tidal energy to be harnessed by 2020.

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