Tidal Power project wins licence in New York

Tidal power is to make its introduction to the United States soon, thanks to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday awarding the first licence for a tidal energy project to Verdant Power Inc. The proposed location of the plant is in the East River, New York City.

The company has a 10 year contract to produce a commercially viable product at Roosevelt Island. It is projected to produce just over a megawatt of power and not require a dam to be in place, like hydroelectric power.

The pilot project will be built in stages, with five turbines ready by the end of 2013 and 30 by 2015. The viability of tidal power and its future in the US is likely to hinge on this project, and the opportunity will be used to look at the impact of the generation technique on fish and river sediment. If successful, the project is hoped to lead to a commercial license and will sell energy produced to the New York power Authority or Consolidated Edison.

The Verdant project is a tidal stream generator project, which makes use of the kinetic energy of water in the same way as wind turbines. Other means of harnessing tidal energy includes tidal barrages, which exploit the height differential between high and low tides and dynamic tidal power, which exploits both kinetic and potential energies in the tidal flows.

Similar projects using tidal or wave power have been attempted in Europe, with the Pelamis wave power project off the coasts of Portugal and Scotland being one of the more successful. Even so, tidal power has had a stop start history and only recently has it been taken seriously.