Seaflow
Seaflow was a marine current power plant built in 2003 . It was a pilot plant from Bristol- based Marine Current Turbines (MCT) with 300 kW output and only one rotor, which was installed in May 2003 off the coast of North Devon in south-west England. It was probably dismantled after a few years, we do not know about this.
As the successor model, the Strangford tidal power station , also from MTC, was in operation from 2008 to 2017. Previously, in 1994, a small test facility with 15 kW was tested in Loch Linnhe , on the west coast of Scotland.
In principle, Seaflow worked like a wind turbine , only the rotor moved under the surface of the water. At the surface of the sea was a small platform for maintenance workers and a computer that collected data about the rotor and monitored the system. At the height of the ocean current, there was an 11-meter-diameter double-bladed rotor that rotated at around 15 revolutions per minute - driven by the ocean current. Like a wind turbine, a generator converted the flow energy into electricity .
Seaflow was designed by the University of Kassel and built with the support of a British Ministry off the coast of Cornwall in the Strait of Bristol in south-west England.
The prototype had a nominal output of 300 kW. The tower on which the rotor was attached was almost 50 m high, with a diameter of 2.5 m. It was driven 15 m into the seabed. Due to the tidal range , the height above the water level was about 5–10 m. The rotor blades were adjustable by 180 ° in order to be able to use the opposite ocean currents of ebb and flow. The prototype had no power connection .
For maintenance of the rotor, it could be hydraulically moved up the tower to above the water level.