The real reason for our Scotland trip was that dad was going to do research for an article on wave and tidal energy. On Orkney, the European Marine Energy Centre has been established, and they’ve opened wave and tidal energy parks where different companies can test their technologies. This fall, the first Swedish wave power plant will be opened on the west coast, which means that interest in Sweden for wave and tidal energy solutions elsewhere has grown.
So dad had scheduled meetings with about half of the companies that were trying out their technologies on Orkney. He had an idea that I should take the photos for the article, but in the end I think the pictures he took turned out much better than mine. I’m not used to this kind of reportage photography, and finding interesting angles to these huge machines is really hard! Oh, well, at least I was the driver too. Dad doesn’t know how to drive. I do. So I still had a function on the trip.
Pelamis’ wave energy sausage.
This business is still so young and the technologies that are being experimented with are very different. It is fascinating, how the engineers have managed to find so many different solutions for essentially the same problems: how to harness the energy in the waves and the tide, where to put the generators (in the machine or on land, connected to the machine through pipes and cables on the ocean floor), how to make sure the machines don’t get damaged during storms. As of now, there doesn’t seem to be a winner, and in the end sever of the techniques might turn out to be successful.
The Finnish wave energy hulk, nicknamed the Penguin.
Scotrenewables tidal energy machine.
Seatricity’s wave energy buoys.
An old machine, the small baby sister of one of the machines that are out in the water. It’s huge, despite it just being a small-scale prototype.
It’s a growing and fascinating business, wave and tidal power, and I almost wish I had studied to become a mechanical engineer. One could say that they are creating a better future for us all. And what am I doing? Just stating all the things that are wrong with the world. Geography can be so depressing sometimes.
Katja Malmborg 