India aims to plan and develop the first Asian tidal power station. The state of Gujarat has been chosen for this purpose. India would be the first Asian nation to plan such a commercial tidal power station. Atlantis Resources of India plans install a tidal farm in Gujarat at Gulf of Kutch near west coast of India.
Atlantis Resources currently aims to install a 50 MW tidal farm but it is believed that the farm can expanded to produce 200 MW of power. Though India is only the one to plan such a facility in Asia but the biggest tidal power station is in La Rance, France. This produces a power of about 240 MW.
But India is not alone in the race to win the title of ‘Asia’s first country to run a tidal power station’. South Korea is also planning to pursue such large scale facilities. The Atlantis Resource would have to beat Sihwa Lake Project at country’s west coast. But Atlantis seems to be optimistic. The feasibility of the Atlantis AK1000 turbine was presented in Gujarat and the feasibility report suggested that the state has very good potentials in terms of turbine facility exploitation.
Atlantis CEO Tim Cornelius said that his company ran a global survey to study the feasibility of such tidal power in ideal locations. He also said the after two and a half years of survey, the Gulf of Kutch seemed ideal. He further said that the company received a great support from government and is planning to go ahead with the project.
The estimated budget for this project of 50 MW tidal power stations with 50 1MW turbines is 150 million dollars. This would indeed boost India’s wind industry and technology. The current schedule of the project in regard to the time span indicates that the engineering plans will be hopefully completed by the end of this year. The construction is believed to start in 2012 and end in 2013. The managing director of Gujarat Power Corporation DJ Pandian said that Gujarat is blessed with many tidal resources and thus represents a huge opportunity for us.
The Indian Industry now experiences a transition to latest energy alternatives. Atlantis was also given right to develop of a 400MW tidal power station in October last year at a consortium. Though South Korea’s project challenges all other plans by attempting to produce 1 GW of power, but still India can be the one to win the race.
China along with many other areas of India is observed to be productive for tidal exploitation. The race for survival greatly depends upon the resources and to efficiently utilize such resources, alternative of resources are found.
