Aug 17 2010
Burntisland Fabrications Ltd. (BiFab), a Scottish company, has won a contract worth £4 million for developing a prototype tidal energy turbine. ScottishPower, the developer of the project, intends to see the production of hundreds of turbines within the coming few years. This signals the prospect of creating thousands of jobs in Scotland.
BiFab will build a full-scale working model turbine for ScottishPower and the design of which will be utilized for a tidal energy project with 10 MW capacity in the Sound of Islay, located off the coast of Scotland. Recently, the Crown Estate gave a licence to ScottishPower for developing a project with 95 MW capacity in the Pentland Firth in Scotland.
BiFab will build the prototype turbine in Stornoway on Lewis. Hammerfest Strøm, which is a joint venture between Statoil, ScottishPower as well as other energy companies, has been developing this prototype turbine.
According to a report by the Scottish government, Pentland Firth’s fast-moving currents have the potential for generating around 4 GW of electrical energy, sufficient to supply Edinburgh and Glasgow. It is believed that over 7% of the tidal energy resource of the world is generated in Scottish waters. The government of Scotland has set a target of producing 2 GW of electrical energy from wave and tidal energy by the year 2020.
Source: http://www.bifab.co.uk/