Durban to Explore Sea-Current Power With Hydro Alternative
3 May 2012
Bloomberg - 2 May 2012
http://topics.bloomberg.com/south-africa/South Africa's southeastern coastal city of Durban is considering developing plants to generate electricity from sea-currents together with Hydro Alternative Energy Inc., which says the project would be the first of its kind.
Hydro Alternative plans to develop a $20 million, 1 megawatt demonstration unit that will generate power from the Agulhas Current, which flows past the city. The project is being supported by the Durban Investment Promotion Agency.
“Generating power from from a sea current has never been done before,” Mark Antonucci, co-chief executive officer of the Jupiter, Florida-based company said in a phone interview today. “All previous wave generation technologies have been tidal based.”
South Africa is pushing the use of renewable energy to reduce the country’s reliance on coal. The government has issued tenders for the construction of renewable energy plants with a capacity of 3,725 megawatts by the end of 2016.
Category: Energy