After months of work, UK-based Pulse Tidal’s “Pulse Stream 100″ tidal generator is now fully assembled and undergoing commissioning and testing in the Humber Estuary near Immingham. The firm says the device is the “world’s first grid-connected shallow water tidal stream generator.”

The Pulse Stream 100 operates in a mean water level of only 9 metres, with a 4-metre tidal range on either side of that. Pulse Tidal says the device will prove for the first time the potential for tidal stream energy from shallow waters.

The DTI Atlas of UK Marine Renewable Energy Resources shows that a significant proportion of the UK tidal steam resource is in water too shallow for other technologies that have been installed recently.

Howard Nimmo, commercial director of Pulse Tidal, said “the installation of this device just 1 kilometre from a large chemical works shows the importance of shallow tidal power technology in bringing power to exactly where it is needed. This project is just the start — others are now in the pipeline.”

“We are extremely excited about proving this shallow water tidal stream energy device and are already preparing for scaling up this technology to the megawatt level,” said Jamie O’Nians, the Pulse Stream 100 project director. “We are also suggesting that a combination of a tidal fence and a small barrage or tidal lagoons would provide a positive solution, producing power whilst preserving the natural habitat. The tidal fence would produce most power at the middle of the tidal cycle, whereas the barrage or lagoon would produce most power at high and low tide. Their combined output would therefore be continuous.”

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