First stage funding received for Isle of Wight tidal trials

Southampton University has secured £20,000 to do an initial assessment of the proposed marine platform site, off the Isle of Wight’s Fort Victoria. Whether this will become the eventual site for the platform will depend on the surveys’ findings. 

The ‘site characterisation surveys’, due to begin in the next two months, will examine factors such as the depth of water and speed of flow.

The waters off the Isle of Wight are likely to provide a favourable site for such a project because the energy in marine currents is concentrated where sea flows are channelled through constraining land mass, such as islands and straits.

The University has been talking to the Isle of Wight Council and regional development agency SEEDA for some time about how to advance such a project.

In an interview last year, Professor A.S. Bahaj, of the University of Southampton’s School of Civil Engineering and the Environment Sustainable Energy Research Group, suggested that the site might be used for the demonstration of a range of offshore turbines and could be producing sufficient electricity to power the whole of the Isle of Wight by 2012.

A spokesperson for the University could not confirm whether the project was still on track to meet such a timetable, saying only that the funding for the site characterisation surveys was an important step but that the project was in its “very early stages”. Build-time for constructing the platform will depend on securing further funding.

The renewable energy industry on the Isle of Wight was dealt a hefty blow earlier this summer when the wind turbine blade manufacturer Vestas closed its factory there, with the loss of more than 400 jobs.

Soon after the closure in August, the Isle of Wight Council wrote to Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband calling for a renewable energy strategy to be developed for the island and put the case for the Isle of Wight being used to test tidal technologies.

Highlighting its collaboration with Southampton University and SEEDA, the Council said: “Your announcement of £22 million for a new Marine Renewables Proving Fund for the testing and demonstration of wave and tidal technologies is particularly welcome. The island’s waters have some of the strongest tidal currents in the UK [...]

“The development of a Strangford Loch-type tidal stream generator is potentially a ‘quick-win’ for both local and national government to deliver low carbon alternatives.”

A spokesperson for the Council said, as of this week, it was still waiting for a reply but hoped to receive one soon.