3:20pm Wednesday 1st September 2010
By Matt Smith
A RETIRED road safety engineer is using Southampton Water to test what he claims could become the future of offshore renewable energy.
Slade Penoyre has spent years developing a floating wind turbine, millions of which could one day be dotted around the coastline.
He believes using small moored floating generators rather than seabed mounted monsters could slash the cost of offshore electricity generation by at least half.
His prototype turbine, mounted on a 12m trimaran off Marchwood Slipways, is intended to be able to generate 20kW, enough power for 20 houses, but less than a hundredth of the power of the giant offshore machines that are the industry standard at present.
He reckons they would cost about £10,000 to build on a mass scale Mr Penoyre, 71, a keen yachtsman and regular at Calshot, said he came up with the idea about five years ago and has invested more than £50,000 of his own cash in the retirement project with the help of Fred Ball, 73, a former chairman of the amateur yacht research society.
Mr Penoyre, from Surrey, said: “Yachting is an expensive business. I thought I could have just as much fun with this and maybe help to save the plant.”
He said the turbine had performed well in its sheltered mooring in Southampton Water but the next step was to move it into rougher waters in the Solent and the Channel.
Mr Penoyre wants consulting engineers to properly evaluate the design and concept – a task he hopes the Carbon Trust will take on and pay for.
“I just want to find out if it is a sensible idea that someone could take up and develop with financial backing.
“If it works and it could halve the price of offshore wind, it would really make a big difference to the world.”
There are currently about 250 wind farms operating in the UK, with a further 12 offshore.
The nearly 3,000 turbines on those farms have the capacity to generate 4,580 mW of electricity, enough to power more than 2.5 million homes.
Earlier this year the Daily Echo revealed plans for an offshore wind farm just 12 miles from the New Forest coast.
Visible from the shoreline, up to 200 giant wind turbines could rise 145 metres from the water, generating enough electricity to power about 500,000 homes and bringing more than 2,000 jobs to the area.
Dutch-based Eneco, owner and operator of 28 wind farms, has been given exclusive rights to develop the farm, to the west of the Isle of Wight, by the Crown Estates.
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