Ocean currents can power every home

Pioneering project may come close to generating enough electricity to power every home in the country

Twenty-four of these Minesto ocean current turbines can generate four times more energy than Suðuroy’s new wind farm. Photo: SEV

Høgni Djurhuus

07.10.2022 - 12:14

The Hestfjørður strait between Streymoy and Hestoy/Sandoy will be home to the world’s first dedicated ocean current power farm, reports public energy supplier SEV.

The new project comes on the back of successful trials in the Vestmannasund strait, which started in early 2020 as a partnership between SEV and Swedish marine energy technology developer Minesto.

The plan is to run 24 turbines in the new power farm, with a projected annual output of 84 Gigawatt hours.

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Caption:

Minesto’s Deep Green technology produces electricity from slow tidal streams and ocean currents by sweeping small turbines across a large area at a speed several times the actual speed of the underwater current

For comparison, the new wind farm in Suðuroy generates 20.4 GWh annually, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 4,000 households, or 4,400 tonnes of oil.

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the new ocean current power farm can, in principle, generate the equivalent to the electricity consumption of more than 16,000 homes. There are about 19,000 homes in the Faroes.