28-Ton, 1.2-Megawatt Tidal Kite Is Now Exporting Power To the Grid
These are by no means small kites — the Dragon 12 needs to be disassembled to fit in a shipping container. It rocks a monster 12-meter (39-ft) wingspan, and weighs no less than 28 tons. But compared to other offshore power options like wind turbines, it’s an absolute minnow, and extremely easy to install using a single smallish boat and a sea bed tether. As with any renewable energy project, the key figure here is LCoE (levelized cost of energy) — so what’s it gonna cost? Well, back in 2017, Minesto projected about US$108/MWh once its first hundred megawatts of capacity are installed — with costs falling thereafter as low as $54/MWh.
The Dragon 12, like other tidal devices, will be more effective in some places than others — and Denmark’s Faroe Islands, an archipelago in the chilly North Atlantic between Scotland and Iceland, offer ideal conditions. Home to about 55,000 people and more than a million puffins, the Faroe Islands funnel tidal currents through a number of slim channels. This accelerates the water significantly, and thus increases the energy that devices like the Dragon 12 can harvest. That’s where the first Dragon has been deployed, and on Friday, it was connected to the local power grid to begin delivering energy. You can watch a video of the Dragon 12 on YouTube.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
News for nerds, stuff that matters
Source : https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/02/13/0651241/28-ton-12-megawatt-tidal-kite-is-now-exporting-power-to-the-grid?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed