Its been announced today that major new tidal energy projects
will be launched in the Pentland Firth, the Sound of Islay and
the Antrim coast. The Pentland Firth in particular has been
described as ‘the Saudi Arabia of tidal power’ and could provide
Scotland with half its electricity [Robert Gordon University
estimate] (Over 15 TWHrs per annum). Tidal farms around Orkney
and Shetland may produce 25 000 MW (73 TWHrs per annum).
Although the annual needs are measured in TWHrs, the actual
plant machinery is measured in MW or GW. It is then factored
into how much electricity it can provide in a year, taking a
third as a load factor. A 6 GW plant provides 6 x 365 (days in a
year) x 24 (hours in a day) x 0.33 (load factor) i.e. 17.2
TWHrs. Installed nuclear plant has 2.09 GW, (July 08). [6.1
TWHr] Installed renewables plant have 2.96 GW (Sept 08 figure).
[8.64 TWHr] In total, Scottish electrical plant from all fuel
sources has 10.3 GW [30 TWHr]. As you can work out from the
Robert Gordon figure, this pretty much eq