Environment

India’s first tidal power plant gets the go ahead

India’s first tidal power plant gets the go ahead
Atlantis Resources Corporation's tidal power turbine before installation on the sea floor
Atlantis Resources Corporation's tidal power turbine before installation on the sea floor
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Illustration of tidal power turbines in use
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Illustration of tidal power turbines in use
Atlantis Resources Corporation's tidal power turbine before installation on the sea floor
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Atlantis Resources Corporation's tidal power turbine before installation on the sea floor

Even with its potential for providing predictable and sustainable electricity generation with no visual impact, tidal power still accounts for only a fraction of a percent of the world’s total electricity generation. That is slowly changing though, with numerous tidal power plants being constructed or planned for coastlines around the world. India is the latest country to wade into the tidal power waters with the announcement of its first commercial scale tidal current power plant to be constructed in the Indian State of Gujarat.

Following a recent economic and technical study of prime sites in the Gulf of Kutch by Atlantis Resources Corporation, which yielded the discovery of as much as 300MW of economically extractable tidal power resources, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narenda Modi, this week approved a 50MW tidal power project to be constructed in the Gulf of Kutch.

The project will see Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd. partner with London-based Atlantis Resources Corporation, which recently revealed plans to develop one of the world’s largest marine power projects in the UK using its new 1MW AK1000 tidal turbine. Both companies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government for the project, which could commence construction as early as this year.

Illustration of tidal power turbines in use
Illustration of tidal power turbines in use

As part of the agreed upon terms of the MoU for a total of 250MW of future tidal power development, the initial 50MW project could be scaled up to more than 200MW of installed capacity. The project is expected to cost around Rs 750 crore (approx. US$164 million).

Atlantis Resources Corp. also has plans to expand into China and South Korea, where it hopes to soon start commercial-scale trials. At last year’s Clean Energy conference in Singapore, Atlantis CEO Timothy Cornelius said global production of electricity harnessing the ocean waves may climb ten-fold to as much as 300MW in the next couple of years.

“China’s the next big market for tidal energy,” Cornelius said. “It has the most natural tidal resources in the world and can be home to more than 1,000 megawatts of tidal energy.”

4 comments
4 comments
Adrian Akau
Surely there are some coastal places in the US that could use this type of equipment to produce power. Energy from tidal power seems like a practical, pollution free method.
Arun Murali
This is good except for the fact that this is going to temporarily affect large fishes and other sea animals living there, atleast during construction.
I hope the systems are slow enough, not to kill the animals during operation.
Myron J. Poltroonian
I can solve the \"Big Fishies\" being injured problem, as well as well as make the generation plants much more productive \"24/7\" (as the grammatically challenged put it), by reconfiguring the ..., and re ... . Oh, yes. there is this one, minor, mayhaps pesky detail: I want to be handsomely compensated for my intellectual output, my \"Ideas\", if you will. However, it\'s so simple, even a fifth grader could think of it. If, that is, they were me and waited until they had 69 years of experience to draw from.
Fred Meyers
All of these ideas are a waste. If a power source *by itself* can *not* maintain 6 billion of us, then it is useless. Wind farms, ocean current farms: they all require too many resources to build and maintain. Oil, coal, nuclear: they don\'t. Anyone consider the resources required to build/maintain a motor on \"each\" windmill?
*** Without government \"subsidies\" there would *not* be a *single* windmill other than personal use.
Can anyone tell me what happens when a quake destroys all of them? What will we do when 6 billion of us depend on them and they are \"all\" destroyed? Maybe we\'ll just calm the quake down before that happens, like on the movies :)