Hawaii Tide Energy Status

[pahoated]

Tide energy systems are powered by the moon. There are two basic tide energy systems, tidal wave and tidal turbine. Tidal wave systems generally float on the surface or use oscillating panels in shallow depths.

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently released a tide energy assessment for the US. Hawaii is one of the higher potential areas with a potential 130 Terawatt-hours per year.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/water/pdfs/m...ssment.pdf

This would far exceed the entire state's energy needs for the near future and make all the other sources secondary backups, especially when tidal energy rates are comparable with hydroelectric, about 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.

The catch is tidal energy generator designs are in the test & evaluation stage before going into scaled down pre-production designs. Large scale installation requires some baseline standardization in design before proceeding to large scale industrial production. However, this is happening very rapidly.

The first US permit for a commercial tidal wave system:
http://www.kval.com/news/local/166808416.html
Reedsport wave power project gets federal permit

This is significant since they are re-using the turbine from a several month evaluation off Norway:
http://gcaptain.com/subsea-turbine-installed-powering/
Subsea Tidal Turbine Installed And Powering Homes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18100191
Tidal power gets a stormy birth off coast of Scotland
1MW per turbine


The new elephant in the room is this. Look at the scale of the turbine and production rate goal of 100 per year.

http://www.openhydro.com/home.html
France's DCNS to set up tidal-turbine factory in Normandy

"French naval defence giant DCNS has unveiled plans to set up an industrial facility in the Port of Cherbourg for the serial-manufacture of full-scale tidal power turbines, with expectations the base will be fabricating some 100 machines a year by 2018."

[Rob Tucker]

Please try to present this material in a Hawaiian context please.


Assume the best and ask questions.

Punaweb moderator

[big_island_bound]

Pretty clear from the forth and fifth sentence was the viability of this study for the state of Hawaii

[TomK]

Have to agree - that post definitely had a Hawaiian context.

I've often wondered about tidal or wave power here. Tidal power is probably not a great option given the tides are quite small here but wave power is surely something that could be looked at.

Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/

[pahoated]

Ummm, the topic was part of the Asian Pacific Clean Energy conference held in ... Honolulu a couple weeks ago:

http://energy.hawaii.gov/news-media/2012...t-and-expo
2012 Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo

One of the presentations given ... uhhh, in Hawaii:
http://energy.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uplo...imFuhr.pdf

DOE is financing another evaluation project off Kaneohe:

quote:

---

Hawaii wave energy project gets $500,000 boost

HONOLULU (AP) - The U.S. Department of Energy is providing $500,000 to a project testing wave energy in Oahu's Kaneohe Bay.
Hawaii's congressional delegation said in a news release Friday the money will support a pilot project to deploy and test a device that will convert wave energy to electricity. The funds will test the technical readiness of the technology.
Sen. Daniel Akaka says wave energy has great potential to be a significant source of power.
The Navy has been testing a wave energy technology in the water off Maine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay for about 10 years.
The Navy hopes to provide wave-produced energy to the Marine base in 2014.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/18571...0000-boost

---

The reason these Hawaii-specific references weren't explicitly mentioned is because they are prime examples of the piddling progress the US is making in this area. The Oregon federal permit is the FIRST permit for the United States and last time I looked Hawaii was part of the United States, OK most of it except for Puna. At this rate, it will be 10 years before there are the first US production systems. Meanwhile, France is putting in a tidal turbine farm, in the English Channel for emphasis plus appearing to have a production ready design (actually from an Irish company) being financed by one of their largest defense companies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xxk6-iTRwY&feature=player_embedded

[baygardener]

This is the same technology tested by the Navy to power the base at Kaneohe for two years, which led, I believe, to the "first" permit in the northwest. Thanks for posting all the links, which, if used, show the ties to Hawaii; there's also a good write-up in Business Week on this..