Tidal Today has an update on the tidal power project in Scotland's Pentland firth - Pentland Firth: building the multi-array dream.

Work is now set to begin on the largest turbine proposal in Europe, after the Scottish Government gave the consent to begin the 86MW Pentland Firth tidal energy project.

Initially construction will begin on a demonstration array consisting of six turbines, located in the Inner Sound off Pentland Firth, starting in the early months of 2014 with the turbines to be commissioned the following year. The aim is that the demonstration device will provide important data on environmental surroundings, and the future of the development phases to implement the full project.

Eventually it is hoped that the array will produce up to 398MW, this has the potential to power over 40,000 homes.

The Smithsonian blog has a post on a new study on the amount of tidal power available in Scotland's Pentland Firth - Is Scotland the “Saudi Arabia” of Tidal Power ?. A lot of the commentary elsewhere seemed to have a vast amount of political spin on it, claiming that earlier estimates of 10 - 20 GW were vastly overblown. if you actually look at the report (and particularly the image below) its fairly obvious that the new "1.9 GW" estimate is for an installation crossing the firth at one point - obviously you could build a number of installations along the firth (points A1 and A2 for example, or out to the Skerries) and get a rather larger number similar to earlier estimates, not that logic is a strong point for many critics of renewable energy.

The researchers looked at the construction of multiple rows of these sorts of turbines, placed in a variety of locations within the Firth. Their models took into account the depth of the water at each given location, observed tidal speeds and heights over the course of each month, and a number of other variables.

Ultimately, the team found that the maximum practical capacity of 1.9 gigawatts would be possible with three rows of turbines, built in the locations mapped below (B, C, and D on the map). Because each row slows down the movement of the tides that pass through it, building more then three would only marginally improve the power capacity, while increasing the overall cost of the project at a constant rate. (A, on the map, is a proposed alternate scheme that would produce a similar level of energy but at a higher cost.) ...

As of now, the biggest hurdle is price: without any carbon pollution regulation schemes in place, most renewable sources of energy, including tidal power, just aren’t as cheap as burning coal or other fossil fuels. But many energy companies have already recognized that, long-term, the cost of fossil fuel production will increase—both because of eventual regulations of the emissions of greenhouse gases and because of fossil fuels are becoming increasingly costly to extract—and harnessing the power of the tides could provide a reliable way to meet a portion of our energy demands.

The future for tidal power projects in the UK wasn't looking so good last week when the government announced the severn barrage project would not go ahead (but that they would support 8 new nuclear power plants - on existing sites, with no public subsidy involved, which will probably make getting them actually built rather tricky).

The BBC reports that things have turned around this week though, with a 400 MW tidal power project getting the go ahead for Pentland Firth in Scotland - Pentland Firth tidal project set for development.

A huge tidal project is set to be developed in the Pentland Firth after the rights to the site were awarded to a consortium by the Crown Estate.

It has described the Inner Sound, which lies between the Caithness coast and island of Stroma, as one of the Firth's "most energetic" tidal areas.

The scheme could involve up to 400 submerged turbines, generating enough energy to power 400,000 homes.

A 25-year operational lease for the site was awarded to MeyGen. It is a joint venture between tidal technology provider Atlantis Resources Corporation, International Power and investment bank Morgan Stanley.

The award of the lease comes after two years of feasibility work in the waters of the Pentland Firth.

Subject to planning consent, the consortium plans to install hundreds of turbines in the Inner Sound area. Construction is expected to take place on a phased basis until 2020.

The project will be one of the biggest in the world, with the potential to generate up to 400MW of power.

The scheme is part of efforts to develop the Pentland Firth and waters surrounding the Orkney Islands in the largest planned wave and tidal generating programme in the world.

Earlier this year, areas in the Pentland Firth and around Orkney were leased to seven companies, which aim to generate enough electricity to supply 750,000 homes by 2020 from a range of wave and tidal devices.

The BBC has an update on plans to harness tidal power in Scotland's Pentland Firth - Pentland power plan 'on schedule' .

The Crown Estate has said the timetable for its leasing of the seabed and installation of renewable energy devices by 2020 remained on schedule It said legal paperwork opening the way for companies to harness wave and tidal power will be signed by the end of March next year. ...

But Thurso and Wick Trade Union Council said the process was taking too long. The council is eager to see new sources of work created to compensate for those that will be shed during the decommissioning of the defunct Dounreay nuclear power complex near Thurso.

Business Green reports that plans to build a tidal powered data centre in Scotland continue to progress - Plans for tidal-powered "Blue Data Centre" flow forward.

Innovative plans for what promises to be the world's first tidal-powered datacentre moved a step closer to reality today with the news that the company behind the tidal turbine technology, Atlantis Resources Corporation, has signed a development partnership with datacentre developer Internet Villages International (IVI).

Under the terms of the alliance, IVI is expected to build an energy-efficient "Blue Data Centre" that will be connected to Atlantis' planned tidal power arrays in the Pentland Firth off the north coast of Scotland.

Atlantis plans to install two 10MW tidal current turbines and will also seek to exploit a planning loophole that allows fast connection of demonstration tidal turbines generating 10MW or less to the grid by inviting a third-party tidal energy firm to also install another 10MW system at the site.

"This project is so exciting because it allows us to sidestep the GB queue for connection to the grid; something which has traditionally held back remote renewable energy projects", explained Dr James Mitchell, head of business development at Atlantis.

IVI, which describes itself as a sustainable property company specialising in energy-efficient datacentres, is to build a datacentre requiring 150MW with the three turbine systems initially expected to provide 30MW of power. Should they prove successful, Atlantis hopes to gain planning permission for further tidal arrays that would not only allow all the energy needs of the datacentre to be met using tidal power, but also enable unused energy to be sold to the grid.

The SMH has a report on Australian tidal power company Atlantis and their ambition to be part of developments in Pentland Firth - Tide turns for ocean energy.

AN AUSTRALIAN company, using technology that a young Queensland engineer designed, is expected this week to announce a string of international contracts.

Atlantis Resources Corporation has developed turbines that can generate electricity from the sea's movement. It has begun trials at San Remo in Victoria. The company is confident it will win a contract to build 500 underwater turbines in the sea off Scotland. The tidal farm will have capacity to power a million homes.

"This is a story of a group of young Australians doing wonderful things on a global scale," Atlantis chief executive Timothy Cornelius said. He said the deep-water Solon turbine that 28-year-old Dr John Keir had designed was considered the world's most efficient underwater generator.

"This young guy from Townsville, in 12 months, has gone from concept to building this turbine," Mr Cornelius said. "The company is hopefully about to make some significant announcements on new projects with the potential to generate hundreds of megawatts of power in the United States, Canadian and Asian markets."

Mr Cornelius said the area that the company hoped to develop in Scotland - the Pentland Firth in the country's north - had been described as the Saudi Arabia of marine power. ...

Mr Cornelius said: "The tides are completely reliable, so much so that you can predict them 20 years in advance. That is exactly the kind of information energy companies are looking for. We can be highly accurate on our outputs to the electricity grid."

He said the Solon turbine worked best when submerged more than 40 metres and could generate two megawatts of power. "When you consider water covers 75 per cent of the world's surface, it is a wonderful opportunity because so much of that power is underdeveloped."

The company began in northern NSW, developing the shallow-water Nereus turbine, which can generate power from rivers. It has since moved to Singapore, nearer its Asian markets.

Mr Cornelius said the company was lobbying state governments in Australia for support to build fields of underwater turbines off the coast of Western Australia and Victoria.

Plans to generate tidal power in Scotland continue to gather strength, with the BBC reporting that Marine Current Turbines are looking at building a 300 MW plant in Pentland Firth - Turbines plan for Pentland Firth

An energy company has announced it wants to deploy underwater electricity turbines in the Pentland Firth. Marine Current Turbines confirmed it intends to apply for a lease from the Crown Estate allowing it to install 300 megawatts (MW) of capacity by 2020. The firm has already deployed a similar tidal energy system in Northern Ireland's Strangford Lough.

The Crown Estate announced in September it was to lease the bed of the firth to developers who want to generate power. The firth, between the Scottish mainland and Orkney, contains six of the top 10 sites in the UK for tidal energy.

It is hoped its power could be harnessed to generate 700MW of electricity by 2020 - enough for about 400,000 homes. Marine Current Turbines said it believed its SeaGen technology could generate up to 300MW or more by 2020 if the local grid could take it.

The John O'Groats Journal reports that a company will develop a 10-megawatt prototype tidal power project in the Pentland Firth (the "Saudi Arabia of tidal power", as the saying goes)- Tidal farm to be developed in firth.

International Power Marine Development yesterday confirmed its plans and said it has opened an office in Thurso and appointed James Minto, who has an engineering background in tidal power technology, to run the project.

The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Power plc, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has business interests in various parts of the globe, will start working with prototype tidal devices but intends to operate on a commercial basis at a later date.

Subject to an environmental impact assessment, a Crown Estate lease, and planning consent from the Scottish Government, the scheme is due to be operational by 2011. "This tidal farm will complement prototype testing and bring tidal stream technology to commercial reality. Together with stakeholders, we have an opportunity to create industry best practice for environmental impact assessments and marine operations. I look forward to working with all concerned to contribute to the foundations of this emerging industry," said Mr Minto.

This initiative – coming just two weeks after the announcement of a £300 million scheme to set up an international computer data centre powered by an array of tidal turbines on the seabed of the Pentland Firth – was yesterday welcomed by local MP John Thurso.

"For development to go ahead it is critical to secure grid connections and that has been achieved making this an extremely important project. It will put prototype devices in the water and they are a necessary beginning to a process that leads to full-scale commercial device," the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP told the John O'Groat Journal.