British company to help India harness the power of the sea  

The Times has an article on British efforts to enter the tidal power market in India - British company to help India harness the power of the sea.

A small British-based tidal energy company has won a landmark contract to attempt to harness the power of the sea around India for the first time.

Atlantis Resources has forged a deal with the western state of Gujarat, under which the privately owned company will establish the feasibility of developing tidal power projects capable of generating more than 100 megawatts of power — enough to supply about 40,000 households.

Of particular interest are the Gulf of Kutch and the Gulf of Khambhat in the Arabian Sea: two sites renowned for extreme daily tides. The project could lead to hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment in tidal energy if the results of the study are positive.

India has more than 4,500 miles of coastline and is scrambling to tackle a gaping power deficit but has yet to establish a single tidal power project. The move to explore the untapped resource comes ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, an event where India will strive to demonstrate that it is doing its utmost to limit emissions while refusing to cap economic growth.

India, which imports 70 per cent of its oil and relies on modest coal reserves to generate most of its electricity, is on course to become the third-largest user of energy by 2030, behind the US and China.

Atlantis’s backers include Morgan Stanley and Statkraft, the Norweigan state utility. The company, which is run by Tim Cornelius, an Australian former pilot of manned submersibles, is also hoping to establish a £400 million project to build one of the world’s biggest tidal power plants in the Pentland Firth, off the Scottish coast.

Last week’s launch of the Oyster took place at EMEC’s Billia Croo site near Stromness, where the device was installed this summer. Scotland’s First Minister was on site to switch on Oyster for the first time. The device, which was developed by wave energy company Aquamarine Power, is currently the world’s only hydro-electric wave energy device which is producing power.

Oyster generates power by pumping high pressure water to its onshore hydro-electric turbine, which will then be fed into the National Grid to power homes in Orkney and beyond. According to Aquamarine Power, “a farm of 20 Oysters would provide enough energy to power 9,000 three bedroom family homes”. ...

Scotland's renewables potential is estimated to be around 60GW, with its waters holding around 10% of Europe’s wave power potential and as much as a quarter of its tidal power potential. The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) provides world-leading test facilities for Aquamarine and other companies to develop the technology needed to harness this huge untapped potential.