25 November '09
5:55 AM UTC
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Cleantech

Osmotic Power Goes Live in Norway, a New Green Energy

It’s simple, cutting edge and extremely preliminary.  It’s called osmotic power and as of yesterday, Norway’s state power company Statkraft is operating the world’s first osmotic power plant.

The prototype plant, located on the Oslo fjord, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of the Norwegian capital, produces just enough green energy to run a coffee machine (2-4 kilowatts).

How does osmotic power work?  The end-goal, like sun or wind generation, is to power a turbine that in turn generates electricity. In the osmotic process that turbine is powered via the pressure created when fresh water flows into seawater.

Picture 6
Photo credit: Statkraft
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15 April '09
6:04 PM UTC
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Wind

Airtricity and Fluor join forces in UK windfarm bid

Airtricity, Scottish & Southern’s clean energy unit, has teamed up with engineering firm Fluor to form a consortium called Seagreen Wind Energy to participate in the UK government’s third bidding round for the construction of offshore wind farms.

The bidding is managed by The Crown Estate, a state-owned company which owns all the seabed within 12 nautical miles of the UK coast. It has so far received bids from 18 firms to develop round three farms, which will help the UK develop 25 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2020.

A winning bid is expected to be announced by the Crown Estate by the end of the year.

This is SSE’s second consortium specifically formed to bid in the round three offshore projects. It also joined forces with German utility RWE Innogy and two Norwegian groups, Statkraft and StatoilHydro to form a consortium called Forewind.

StatoilHydro is jointly developing the 315-megawatt  Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm with fellow Norwegian energy company Statkraft.

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2 April '09
4:13 PM UTC
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Wind

StatoilHydro and Statkraft to jointly develop UK offshore project

Statkraft has agreed to buy half of a British offshore wind farm from  Norway’s oil and gas company StatoilHydro.

The two Norwegian companies will jointly develop  the 315-megawatt  Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm, which is located between 10 and 15 miles off the coast of Norfolk, in the northeast of England. It is Statkraft’s first investment in the offshore.

Reuters reports Statkraft paid  5 billion crowns ($740.5 million) for the stake.

Sheringham is smaller than the 1,000-megawatt London Array offshore project. Royal Dutch Shell has backed out from this projet.  These two projects will help the UK meets its goal of supplying a third of its electricity from wind power by 2020.

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30 March '09
2:42 PM UTC
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Tidal & Wave

Singapore tidal power developer raises $14M for global expansion

Atlantis Resources, a Singapore-based developer of tidal turbines, has raised $14 million in new funding,  to among other things support the roll out of a project pipeline of some 800 megawatts with potential sites in Asia, Europe and North America.

Coming on board as a new investor was Norwegan energy company  Statkraft. Other participants included Morgan Stanley, which is Atlantis’ largest shareholder, and has been a long-time backer of the company.

Statkraft develops hydro, wind and solar plants. It also holds stakes in tidal technology companies, Hydra Tidal Technology and Thetis Energy consortium, which was set up last year to work on tidal power projects off the coast of Northern Ireland.

Atlantis and Statkraft say they will work together to develop tidal power  projects in Europe. Atlantis is currently developing a project in Scotland, where its installing turbines that will provide clean electricity to a data center under construction.

Go to the press release from Atlantis Resources

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