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Tidal power for Russia
Yuri Zaitsev
In the Russian Sea of Okhotsk, waves reach a height of 17 mtrs.
Two unique tidal power plants will soon be built in Russia.
The plants, in the White Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, will be the first in Russia to be used for industrial purposes. The power plant at Mezehn in the White Sea will produce 10,000 megawatts and have the potential for twice that amount, while its sister plant at Penzhin Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk, where tides reach 17 meters, will generate 20,000 to 90,000 kilowatts. Potentially Russia could use tidal energy to cover its current energy production and consumption needs. The Kola Peninsula and the Sea of Okhotsk alone could produce about 100 gigawatts from tidal plants; the average settlement north of the Arctic Circle consumes about 2 megawatts.
The first Russian plant
The first tidal plant in Russia entered service in Kislaya Bay on the White Sea in 1968. The plant — 36 meters long, 18.3 meters wide, 15.35 meters high and made of reinforced concrete — was built in a dock near Murmansk, and then towed for 100 km to its final destination. It won a gold medal at the Expo world fair in Japan, and the technology used to build it is now used to build offshore oil platforms.
The plant at Kislaya Bay was mothballed as there were no funds for its modernisation in the mid-1990s, but recently commissioned again after a hiatus of almost a decade. Tides at Kislaya Bay reach 5 meters, and the plant — considered to be experimental — has a capacity of 400 kilowatts.
The orthogonal turbine used to modernise the plant is a unique piece of engineering used nowhere else in the world. The main idea underlying it is that the turbine blades always rotate to one side, regardless of the direction of the water flow.
This type of turbine has been used for many years in wind farms, and was adapted for aquatic use by the NII Energosooruzheniy research institute and built at the Sevmash facility, best known for building nuclear submarines. An orthogonal rotor means the blades do not have to be turned when the water flow changes, which reduces maintenance costs by about 30%.
With the recent coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas emissions, EU countries plan to increase the share of renewable energy resources by 10% by 2010. The commissioning of the Kislaya Bay plant, which of course produces no carbon dioxide, is Russia's contribution to solving global environmental problems. In addition to tidal power, Russia is constructing a wind farm in the Kaliningrad region, geothermal power is being developed in Kamchatka, an experimental testing area is being established for "small hydro-electric engineering" not far from Yaroslavl, and a federal law on renewable sources of energy is in the process of development.
RIA Novosti
And.....
Russia sees "Fantastic Opportunities" in Tidal Power Projects
MURMANSK, February 8 (RIA Novosti/Northwest news agency's Ekaterina Kozlova) - "Russia has fantastic opportunities to build several tidal power plants," said Anatoli Chubais, board chair of the UES (United Russian Power Grid) company. He addressed newsmen today in Murmansk, major seaport in Russia's northwest, upon visiting in its vicinity the Kislaya Guba experimental tidal power plant-this country's only for today.
"We saw unique technologies not in blueprints but in action. If these technologies turn out to meet desired parameters, we shall start a huge endeavor of an unprecedented purport," said Mr. Chubais.
As he told the media, there was a conference at an R&D institute two years ago, UES bosses attending. Staff researchers told them about their new achievement, an orthogonal turbine which retains its rotation direction at tide and ebb alike.
"The turbine appeared an abstract invention at the time. It was determined, however, to implement it here in the Kola Peninsula. The target was met.
"This is not merely Russia's first tidal plant-it is using the world's first orthogonal unit invented by Russians to work for a tidal plant.
"Its parameter forecasts promise a huge breakthrough not on a Russian but a global scale. That is no exaggeration," Anatoli Chubais triumphantly concluded.
Novosti previously interviewed Evgeni Ustinov, chief of PR for Kolenergo Co., Kislaya Guba plant proprietor.
The experimental unit was designed by the NIIES, research institute for power industrial construction, on INTERGEOCOM Co. order, and manufactured by Sevmash Co., based in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Region, also in European Russia's north, said our informant.
"The new hydropower machinery has a very simple design. A true high-tech item, it requires much less metal than usual. Thanks to all that, it takes half as much time and money to make one as to manufacture conventional equipment."
The world has no analogue to offer to this orthogonal turbine. The cutting-edge technology is welcome to other tidal plants to be built. The INTERGEOCOM is ready with blueprints for a 12 million kilowatt plant in Mezen, Arkhangelsk Region, and an 8 million kilowatt in Tugur on the Sea of Okhotsk, in the Russian Far East, added Mr. Ustinov.
The Kislaya Guba plant had its work suspended for ten years, to be recommissioned, December last.
Commissioned in 1968, the tidal power plant is under government protection as national scientific and technical monument. It produced a total 8,018,000 kwt/hrs of energy between 1970 and 1994.
Source:
RIA Novosti
URL:
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