Verdant is also testing other turbine technologies in the US Navy David Taylor Model Basin in Carderock, Maryland. The basin, located close to the company’s corporate headquarters, permits rapid prototyping, fluid dynamic studies, and model testing.
Verdant is planning a one megawatt system using the helical turbine in the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. If successful, the system can be replicated in other rivers and streams in the state.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has asked Verdant to evaluate the feasibility of deploying IEGT plants in the waterways within the TVA’s domain. Characteristics such as water flow rate, water depth, river bottom topography, as well as proximity to power grid connections have to be determined before the economic feasibility of such projects can be ascertained.
The company is also evaluating the possibility of projects in aqueducts in California and tidal basins in the United Kingdom.
A Norwegian Company called Hammerfest Strøm is developing IEGT type technology to be deployed in tidal basins and other water ways in Norway. A British company called Marine Current Turbines has just completed a pilot project off Lynmouth in Devon that has generated 300 kilowatts of power. The next phase will be a system generating one megawatt, followed by a full commercial system generating ten megawatts of electricity. MCT is looking at other, similar projects in North America, South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
A pilot project called the Snail, under the auspices of Robert Gordon University in Scotland, is being prepared to capture the tidal energies in Eynhallow Sound in Orkney. It is expected that similar devices would be commercially useful in the sea lochs in Western Scotland as well as channels between the Orkney and Shetland islands.