Canada’s Water Wall Turbine (WWT) tidal vessel demonstration project has resulted in the de-velopment of 3 major sub-systems which combined could prove a viable solution for powering many remote communities around the world. WWT installed its 1MW turbine driving a 500kW power plant, coupled with the proprietary micro-grid management system and the energy storage system, at Dent Island Lodge, located in Canadian province of British Columbia last year.
The project has developed a commercially viable tidal energy system suitable for narrow, shallow channels and river streams, and micro-grid management system with advanced energy storage for remote and distrib-uted generation.
The floating tidal turbine consists of an anchored 550-tonne catamaran-like barge that houses a large 72-tonne paddle wheel turbine. It rotates at less than 12 revolutions per minute, and is designed using WWT’s patented technology that extracts not just the kinetic energy, but also the latent potential en-ergy of fast moving currents by operating on the surface where currents are strongest, according to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).
A remote ‘islanded’ micro-grid system was designed and developed to enable Dent Island to manage tidal generation, 500kWh energy storage and emergency back-up diesel.
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Tidal energy for off-grid sites
VATIS UPDATE Part
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