Deep Green Underwater KiteSouth Down Cllr Cadogan Enright has congratulated Marine Current Turbine (MCT) for winning the prize for Tidal Energy Competitiveness 2010 at the first International Tidal Energy Summit Awards held in London last month. The company picked up the prestigious award for SeaGen – a 1.2MW tidal turbine located in Strangford Lough.

This comes just weeks after a system being tested in Co. Down by Swedish Company Minesto, “Deep Green Under Water Kite” was named in Time Magazine’s 50 Top Inventions list for 2010. Minesto plans to locate a test farm off the coast of Ireland in 2012 and connect it to the Northern Ireland grid.

The ‘Deep Green’ tidal kites will be tethered to the ocean floor with specially developed electrical cables. They will use kinetic energy and automatic rudders and fly in a figure eight pattern with the oceanic currents. Because water is eight hundred times as dense as air, these kites technically could produce eight hundred times the energy as an equivalent wind turbines.

Undersea kite farms could massively increase green energy across the world if Minesto is successful.

Councillor Enright said: “I am delighted that both devices have been recognized for their potential to generate renewable energy and that they are both located in Co. Down. The Seagen tidal energy turbine, located between Strangford and Portaferry, has repeatedly broken the world record for generating renewable energy. But ‘Deep Green’ has the potential to generate energy even without tidal action, by simply using the sea current flowing anti-clockwise around the Irish coast”.

“These breakthroughs should alert our local industries to the fact that we have the perfect conditions for generating renewable tidal energy. There is an opportunity here right now to boost our local economy while developing energy security for Northern Ireland. They are clear examples of how research into the area of clean energy can provide world leading skills and knowledge for Northern Ireland, while at the same time producing viable economic alternatives to fossil fuels,” Said Cadogan Enright.

“These world-class plaudits show the success and potential for this type of renewable technology. There is a real opportunity for us to invest and develop such technologies which will help us toward fuel security and will ultimately create jobs. Northern Ireland has a long and proud history of engineering and mechanical ingenuity and economic entrepreneurship, from the shipyards to agriculture. Clean energy could be an innovative new chapter in Northern Ireland’s industrial development and an opportunity for us to embrace and export renewable energy technology,” concluded Cllr Cadogan Enright.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

By Cadogan