Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Millennium3
Good to have an expert on board.
Why is wave power so difficult to convert? For Britain it seems the perfect solution - so much water so much tide - their must be enough energy here to make a significant number of power stations redundant!
|
Thank you for your kind words.
I think MKP is right about the cost of construction and maintenance.
There are two other points I would like to add to that.
The first is one of scale - often not really appreciated.
The system in operation on Islay is around 500kW capacity. To put that in perspective, a single alternator at Drax power station (coal fired) is 660,000kW. Puting it otherwise, it would need over 1 million of the systems at Islay to generate the output of just one of the alternators at Drax - and Drax has 6 such alternators making it about 7% of total UK capacity.
The other point is variability.
Sometimes there will be big waves, sometimes little ones and sometimes none at all. And there are times when people want power and times when they don't. Wave power is an on availability source. Electrical power is an on demand expectation. To cope with the variability means that you need to be connected to a grid system that is capable of providing power when the waves don't, and just as importantly, can accept the excess over requirements when demand is low. That requires bulk generating capacity to be able to cope with the variability. You can't just shut down power stations without risking grid instability.