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Underwater kites deliver wave power to Faroe Islands
21/2/2024
News
Minesto has announced that the 1.2 MW Dragon 12 tidal power plant has begun its first phase of operation, delivering electricity to the Faroe Islands.
The 1.2 MW utility-scale power plant features a 12-metre, 28-tonne subsea kite anchored to the seabed that generates electricity by converting kinetic energy from tidal streams and ocean currents. Dragon 12 is 10-times larger than the company’s existing 100 kW Dragon 4 model.
Minesto’s technology generates power by a patented principle similar to a kite flying in the wind. The wing uses the hydrodynamic lift force created by the underwater current to move the kite. With an onboard control system, the kite is autonomously steered in a predetermined figure-of-eight trajectory, pulling the kite-mounted turbine through the water at a water flow several times higher than the actual stream speed.
The turbine shaft then turns the generator which outputs electricity to the grid via a power cable in the tether and a seabed umbilical to shore.
The Faroe Islands, home to just over 50,000 people, are an autonomous territory of Denmark located halfway between Shetland and Iceland. The Islands aim to achieve a target of net zero energy generation by 2030.
‘What the Minesto team has achieved today is extraordinary and sets a new agenda for renewable energy buildout in many areas of the world. The Dragon 12 is powerful, cost-effective and feeds predictable electricity to the grid,’ comments Dr Martin Edlund, Chief Executive Officer, Minesto.
