TEN YEARS AGO Friday July 9, 2010

Tidal energy prototype wins grant for tests in Sound of Sanda

Kintyre is looking to the future with renewable energy not just in wind power but also in the waves.

Already home to a major player in the Scottish wind turbine industry and wind farms, the news came this week that more than £0.5 million of public money is coming to Sanda Sound to build a 35W demonstration device to generate wave power.

Oceanflow Development Ltd plans to deploy an ‘Evopod’, a semi-submerged floating platform and mooring system.

The firm believes this is an economical and low-risk way of generating electricity, designed for the type of deep water and often harsh environmental conditions off the coast of Scotland.

It is also hoped the Evopod will prove that community-scale projects are viable and that the design also could be scaled up to megawatt size and deployed in numbers in the Pentland Firth.

The grant was one of five given a total of £13 million from the WATERS fund, which stands for Wave And Tidal Energy: Research Development and Demonstration Support.

Jim Mather, Argyll and Bute MSP, unveiled the five projects in his role as energy minister. They include ventures in Orkney, off the Western Isles, Loch Ness and Cromarty Firth.