Oceanflow’s Evopod trial for the Sound of Sanda

We’ve already published a news item on the information day on the trial that Oceanflow is holding at Aqualibrium in Campbeltown, from 2.00pm to 8.00pm on Thursday 14th July 2011

In advance of that session, people will be interested to know more of the background of the company, the device to be trialled and its ambitions.

Oceanflow is a small company, currently with 5 employees, whose headquarters is at North Shields in Tyne and Wear.

Since 2008, it has been testing a small 1kW unit in the 9 knot bore at the narrows of Strangford Lough at Portaferry in Northern Ireland. The device to be trialled in the Sound of Sanda can generate up to 35kW.

The company’s research and development is centred on versions of its Evopod.

This is a semi-submersible, floating and anchored device – rather like a navigation buoy – which has two significant strengths.

• One is that, as a floating device and not one fixed to the seafloor, it can operate near the surface where the strongest tidal flows occur.
• The second is that, needing only anchoring contact with the seabed, it’s deployment is not constrained by having to find or create a sufficiently level seabed base.

We have just asked Oceanflow about what they have to do to signal the presence of a navigational hazard and will add that information here when we get it.

An additional advantage of the device floating near the surface is that it is much more accessible for maintenance and repair. It simply has to be disconnected from its mooring and towed away.

During the proposed five year trial in the  Sound of Sanda, it will be annually towed back to Campbeltown for maintenance. Part of the trial period is to gain the experience of a few winters to test the reliability of the device in all conditions.

The small scale Evopod unit in this trial – 35kW – is a size that Oceanflow sees as potentially attractive for community energy schemes – a perspective we feel has much to offer – and to Argyll communities. The Evopod can be deployed in tidal streams and in river estuaries. Devices like this open up the possibility of making use of smaller localised tidal streams to generate energy for community use and for transmission to the National Grid.

Developed from technologies already in existence in the offshore oil and gas and wind energy industries, its concept has this provenance and Ocanflow claim it offers a low cost, low risk entry to tidal stream energy generation.

A larger version of the Evopod is a possible candidate for the Scottish Government’s Saltire Prize – but we would have thought that the thinking behind supporting small scale community sustainability projects – which lies behind the Kintyre trial – is also very much attuned to the way energy provision for the future is envisaged.

The company has had a ‘pre-screening’ meeting with Marine Scotland, the Scottish Government body that issues licences for tidal energy device testing  – from which they were encouraged us to put in a full application which will be done before the end of August.

In the arcane circumstances which obtain in post-devoiution Scotland,  the Crown Estate Commissioners (CEC) have ownership and autonomy over Scotland’s sea bed to 200 miles out.

This means that, like all others. Oceanflow must obtain a lease from the CEC for the bit of seabed in the Sound of Sanda where the Evopod device will be anchored.

The power generated by the turbine will be fed ashore to a control cabin and the company will be applying for planning permission to put the control cabin on a local farmer’s land.

This information is intended to increase knowledge and awareness of what is proposed in advance of the information day on Thursday, so that those attending can make best use of their time and their access to Oceanflow staff in exploring issues of interest.

Evopod sounds like a practical and intelligent concept and it has obviously had a successful micro-scale test in Northern Ireland since 2008. It will be interesting to learn more about it at Aqualibrium on 14th July.

Oceanflow staff will be on hand throughout the event to answer questions and their will  be video and static displays.