Areva chooses Le Havre

Le Havre - France. 30/09/2011. MRE
By Christopher Longmore

The French press ("Les Échos") reports that the national nucelar energy champion Areva has selected Le Havre for a new manufacturing base for offshore wind turbines in France. As well as its nuclear activities, it is also heavily committed to renewable energies. This decision is a consequence of the French governmémt`s recent €10Bn. call for tenders to build 5 offshore wind farms.

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OWA calls for Anglo-German co-operation in offshore wind.

LONDON - (U.K.) -  28/09/2011 - 3B Conseils-Mer-Veille-MRE
Original Article by Francis Rousseau  - edited and translated by Christopher Longmore

Since 2003, some 500 offshore wind turbines were built and 180 were installed in 2010 in the UK. They have a notional capacity of just over 1.5 GW, while the estimated capacity for development licenses granted by the Crown Estate in Round 3 is of 33 GW, equivalent to 5,500 wind turbines ( assuming an average size of 6 MW).


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Marine Energy in Scotland - an example worth watching?

Brest - France. 27/09/11. MRE.

Even on a sunny day the rugged coastline of Caithness on the north-eastern tip of Scotland, feels as though it is on the edge of the world. The remoteness of this most northerly part of the British mainland was why, in 1955, the government sited an experimental nuclear reactor at Dounreay, a few miles from Thurso. Yet even though the reactor is being decommissioned and its 1,900 associated jobs are dwindling, locals are upbeat—unlike those in most of recession-hit Britain. There may be some lessons for other similarly remote areas of Europe where economic/industrial regeneration is an urgent priorty -like Brittany in France. Not for nothing is the western tip of Brittany also know locally as the "end of the world!".


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French CGT union suports cross-Channel partnerships

Brest (France) - 23/09/11 MRE-BB/CBL

On the same day as the cross-channel marine renewables partnership agreement between Brittany and South West England was signed, the communist led French trade union CGT published a very well informed report setting out its position on marine renewables generally and in Brittany specifically. Predictably committed to state involvement in the electricity industry, the CGT was supportive of cross-channel initiatives in marine renewables. It has also always been supportive of a policy of diversification of energy supply.

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€5 million Euros project to develop marine renewable energy in Cornwall.

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MERiFIC (Marine Energy in Far Peripheral and Island Communities) is a collaborative project supported by the EU that draws together universities and leading research and marine organisations from the Westcountry and Brittany in France.


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VALOREM and PMVE-BARD interested in Bordeaux site

BORDEAUX (France) - 21/09/2011 - 3B Conseils/MRE Original Article By Francis Rousseau - editted and translated by Christopher Longmore

Both Valorem with 400 MW of green energy installed at Bègles in France,  and  PMVE - a subsidiary of the German company Bard*, based in Bremen, which created a legal entity on site, responded to the call for projects launched by the Grand Port Maritime Bordeaux (GPMB) on June 15, 2011 (see article of 22 June 2011). The deadline for submissions was September 15. The winner should be known in November.  Several questions remained to which the GPMB has provided detailed responses in this article.

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HYDRA TIDAL - the tidal turbine with wooden blades

LOFOTEN Islands (Norway) - 20/09/2011 - 3B Conseils-Mer-Veille-MRE -
Original article by Francis Rousseau, editted and translated by Christopher Longmore

The Hydra Tidal turbine that equips the Morild station is capable of harnessing tidal and wave power. Its other particularity is that the turbine blades are made of laminated wood. In year long tests off the Lofoten Islands, the unit has performed very well  (see our French article of 21 october 2010). This summer it was awarded the prestiguious  Schweighofer Priz 2011. Do timber blades have advantages over composites, and if so, what are they?

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240 gigawatts by 2050?

BREST - (France) - 19/09/2011
Oringial article by Francis Rousseau  - translated and editted by Christopher Longmore

According to a recent study by the Carbon Trust that  follows the report Accelerating Marine Energy Report  CTC97, published in July, 240GW of marine energy capacity could be installed in the world of by 2050 including 190 MW for the UK alone. For now only ten megawatts has been installed worldwide and it is not expected to reach 1 GW (1,000 MW) until 2016-2017. 75% of this massive capacity planned to be installed by 2050 could be provided by the wave power alone (the United States has determined that it alone could provide 10% of its consumption) and the rest from wave and tidal power.  Ocean thermal energy (ETM) was counted for a very small part in the U.K.


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SHIHWA LAKE : the new tidal turbine electricity generating station supercedes the Rance

Thursday, September 8th 2011

SEOUL - (South Korea) - 08/09/2011 - 3B Conseils-MRE - 

Original Article by  Francis Rousseau translated and editted by Christopher Longmore.

According to the Korean press agency Yonhap, after 7 years work the tidal turbine electricity generator was inaugurated on August 29th by the Président of the Republic of South Korea  LeeMyung-bak. It is slightly more powerful than the Rance barrage system in Brittany (France) operated by EDF that was the first in the world and entered into service in 1967 with a capacity of  240 MW. The Lake Shihwa plant with its 254MW deprives Rance of  the pole position that it has held for 45 years!

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