The world's first tidal turbine was set to create electricity from tidal energy, but installation dates have been pushed back. Originally planned for drop-down in Northern Ireland this summer, an unfortunate August 3rd press release announced that Marine Current Turbines would be delaying installation due to prior commitments of the installation vessel (shown below).
A2Sea, the owners and operators of the machine, are currently in discussion with Marine Current Turbines to decide on a new date. Apparently A2Sea is behind schedule on another project, with the irony being that the top of their homepage states, "We deliver...based on the experience of more than 200 offshore wind turbines successfully installed." They did say when they deliver...just that they did, in fact, deliver.
From the website:SeaGen is the name given to the 1.2MW tidal energy converter that will be installed in Strangford Lough during 2007. Sea Generation Ltd is the project company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marine Current Turbines Ltd. SeaGen has been has been licensed for a maximum installed duration of 5 years.
Marine Current Turbines Ltd have been operating the 300kW Seaflow tidal energy system at Lynmouth, Devon since May 2003 and are recognised as being one of the worlds leading tidal energy system developers.
The proposal to install SeaGen in Strangford Lough was initiated in November 2003. The environmental consultancy, Royal Haskoning Ltd was appointed in 2004 to scope the environmental considerations and conduct the environmental impact assessment.
For addition research in the field of tidal energy:
Electric Power Research Institutes's Tidal in Stream Energy Conversion Project (TISEC)
