People 4/4
turbine is around 300 square meters, Tidal Sails calculates it can expose 10,000. Børgesen notes that while current record for energy generation in this sphere is €31/kWh, Tidal Sails, if everything goes to plan, could hit the €5/kWh mark. “We cannot keep improving 5% here, 5% there. We have to get several hundred times better. The problem with the ocean energy segment today is that there is not enough technology focus, there is too little realistic competition,” he says. “Let’s get down to the facts. How expensive are these technologies going to be? How much does it cost to produce on kw/h? How much does one installa- tion cost? There is too little focus on this and too much focus on the prestige of the individual partners.”
Faced with such ostensibly impen- etrable cliquishness, Tidal Sails’s current business model is built around partner- ships that pull their weight instead of cash-rich investors and marquee institutions. Doppelmayr from Austria provides ropeway engineering, while DSM Dyneema from Holland brings the Ultra- High Molecular Weight Polyethylene. Other companies on board include Norwegian companies Akyadykk (diving services for installation) and Subsea Design (oil and gas-based engineering company), as well as the UK’s Aquatera (environmental services and products). All contribute to the overall vision and mission; all have received shares and exclusivity for the delivery of their particular component when the company grows.
The system can span any depth
To date, Tidal Sails has existed in relatively low-key, stealthy mode, operating only with a small-scale demonstration with a nominal capacity of 28KW in a stream. Next year is set to be the year where that all changes. In the coming months, a full-scale system is planned in cooperating with an energy company – a move that will finally provide the hard facts that truly show the company’s ability to differentiate and save money. Inevitably, this will attract wider attention, investment and take the company to the next level, enabling it to go global. And go global it has to; more than 99% of the world’s tidal stream energy resources exist outside Norway, with tantalising markets in addition to the UK including North America and East Asia. Tidal Sails’s commercial ambitions include installations consisting of multiple units, each with a nominal capacity between 2-10 MW. Initial locations for the next step have been identified in Nova Scotia, Scotland, with another yet to be determined.
“Several units may be installed in a tidal
stream and consequently represent a considerable production of clean renewable electricity in the range of 10-100+GWh a year,” says Børgesen with pride. “We cannot understand how any of the technologies on the market will have a chance of coming close to us.”
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