Turbine solution heads offshore

Sun Herald
Sunday 13/9/2009 Page: 37

SOUTH AMERICA seems destined to benefit from home-grown sustainable technology that is being overlooked by Australian industry and government. Gold Coast company Tidal Energy has developed a turbine that can produce potentially limitless clean electricity from water currents. The company's chairman, Bill Meywes, said last week the company could sell the patents for the technology "for millions of dollars" but nobody in Australia seemed interested.

During the past 10 years the company has received grants worth $143,000 for research and development from federal and state government agencies. "That's just enough money to send you broke," Mr Meywes said. "I can understand why other companies take their inventions overseas because it's so hard to get backing here." Mr Meywes said the Davidson-Hill Venturi Turbine could be used in any waterway that flowed to help supply low-cost electricity for coastal and riverside communities worldwide, including islands off the Queensland mainland.

The design includes a submerged water-current turbine similar to a jet engine. It draws water through a hydro-foil system to turn an impeller that converts the kinetic energy of the water into mechanical energy that can power an electrical generator. He said the turbine worked "like a wind generator under water". "Wind generators can't operate without wind but the sea is the most reliable power source in the world because tides never stop going in and out," he said. He said the technology could add to existing power sources, not replace them "at this stage".

The turbine could be used to lift living standards of remote communities and Third World countries through cheap power, he said. Representatives from the South American "Latin Power Group" will visit on September 22 to inspect the $300,000 turbine. The President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe-Velez, is on the group's advisory board, Mr Meywes said. "They are looking at ordering three turbines," he said. "South America arguably leads the world in the adoption of alternative clean green power and we are seen by them as having the most effective system available for power generation from moving water."

During its formative years, Tidal Energy worked with Griffith University turbine experts.