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World's ‘largest renewable energy city’
A farm of underwater tidally-driven turbines in New York's East River could make the city the world's largest in the renewable energy stakes. The first set of tidal turbines has been deployed in the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project and is under test. The three-bladed units can each generate from 16kW to 32kW of electricity. The farm will eventually have a capacity of 10MW but the total project, comprising four sites, will have a potential capacity of nearly 40MW. Once developed, it would make New York the world's largest renewable energy city. The project is led by Verdant Power, which is also conducting a survey of a second tidal energy site in the Buttermilk Channel of the East River, alongside Governor's Island - an area known as New York City's Golden Triangle. Verdant Power was formed in March 2000 and says it is constantly in a global search for additional locations in areas that need sustainable power generation. It is in the process of examining sites in South America, China, India, and others. The company says the size of the world kinetic hydropower market is over 250,000MW and the US share is 12,500MW. It quotes the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as believing that free-flow, or kinetic, hydropower systems could be the key answer to distributed generation - putting generation close to consumption. Verdant Power says by starting its first US project in New York City, conceivably the toughest US regulatory environment, the Company has become the industry's trail blazer in changing the regulatory process and setting its standards. |
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