A new tidal power plant is being planned in South Korea. The "Seaturtle Tidal Park" will be the largest such implementation of tidal power technology in the country.
The first turbine for the new tidal park has been developed by Voith in Germany, and now in cooperation with Korean partner Renetec, the new turbine will be installed in Korea for testing. The unit is capable of generating 110 kW of power (sounds small, but remember it's going to be an array of tidal turbines). The trial phase is going to be running until the end of 2010, when construction of the tidal power plant will officially begin. Once completed, the power plant will output 150 MW of clean electricity, which is enough for supplying about 100,000 average households.
It is estimated that the energy potential that could be harnessed from the seas worldwide is about 1100 GW. Some optmistic estimates say that about 15% of the world's energy consumption can be satisfied through marine energy.
[source: Voith, image: Voith]
The Bank of China has approved a USD 440 million loan to the China Hydroelectric Corporation (CHC). The company is planning to acquire small hydroelectric projects.
According to local media, the hydropower project planned in the Kaduna State in Nigeria has been approved. The news came right after the country has entered into an energy crisis from shortages of gas, resulting in four power plants getting shut down.
One of the greatest problems faced by the hydroelectric industry is predicting the amount of water flow on a given location annually. This is one of the main factors which determines almost every aspect of a hydropower project, starting from dam placement and design to the choice of the conversion machine. A typical hydropower project costs somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars, so carefull and precise assessment of the hydropotential which is to be harnessed is of utmost importance. Probably the most vulnerable hydropower projects are those with dams, where the operator accumulates water, and uses it over time to achieve a pretty much constant supply of electricity. Knowing the changes in flows more precisely and with greater certainty, would greatly improve the operators' ability to regulate the volume of accumulated water spent to maintain constant electricity production, without overspending the accumulation.
