Validating the Generic Application of an Innovative Second Generation Horizontal Axis Cross Flow Tidal Turbine

Developing renewable energy sources in order to counter the effects of global warming is a high priority for the UK and other countries. But these sources must be economic long term, otherwise purchasers of electricity – that’s all of us – will be paying too high a price.
It has long been thought that man should be able to extract energy from the tides – the unstoppable rise and fall of the ocean means that strong flows of water could be used to generate electricity. The problem has always been how to do this. So engineers looked at wind turbines, and concluded that these, suitably strengthened, would be a good way of doing just that. Now prototypes are testing whether the dream of cheap tide generated electricity can be achieved. Initial results are indicating that the machines can be made to work, but at a high cost.
Three eminent engineers at Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science (Professors Guy Houlsby and Martin Oldfield, and Dr Malcolm McCulloch) a few years ago felt that they could do better and drew up designs for a radically different approach to generating power from the tides, one which should be more efficient, and cheaper as well. What’s more, it could form the basis for economically extracting power from the Severn Estuary, without many of the environmental problems posed by constructing a barrage. They called their design the Transverse Horizontal Axis Water Turbine or THAWT for short.
The problem they faced was how to get their invention to market. Two engineers involved in the hydro electricity business (Sean Westrope and Peter Dixon) joined with them to set up the Kepler Energy company, whose aim is to commercialise THAWT and take it into world markets. But to do this, more fundamental work was necessary. Detailed tests were needed to evaluate the forces in the machine in order to produce a design made of real world materials. And a detailed plan had to be drawn up to make the machine, install it and operate it – and make money from it.
This is where the TSB came in – by matching the investment of the hydro engineers, it provided some of the finance to do these tests and to formulate the plans.