The proposed data centre will be located in the Pentland Firth, which separates the Orkney Islands from the Scottish mainland and has huge potential tidal energy resources. The data centre would require about 150MW/hours of power, equivalent to the needs of a combined Aberdeen-Dundee sized city.

Morgan Stanley is working with (Below. Courtesy:Atlantis) Atlantis Resources Corp, a Singapore-based developer of tidal current turbines, that proposes to install an array of tidal turbines in the Pentland Firth. They say the first series of turbines would be operational in 2011, and the project's estimated cost is a cool £250m-£300m.

Initially, the data centre would run on power drawn from the grid. But, once the turbines were installed, energy would be transferred to the data centre via a private cable, also funded by Morgan Stanley, by-passing the queue of renewable energy projects awaiting grid connection.

"If you bring industry to northern Scotland, you overcome the electricity transmission constraints, while benefiting the environment," said John Woodley, co-head of Morgan Stanley's European and Asian power, gas and related businesses. "Given that data centres need to be built somewhere, it makes sense to place them as close as possible to renewable energy sources that are currently grid-constrained."

Morgan Stanley aims to attract customers such as Google, who have fast growing computing capacity needs. Google said it is actively exploring options to power its data centres with renewable energy.

"The data centre is the key to the tidal project," said Roy Kirk, area manager for the Highlands & Islands Enterprise, the Scottish government's economic development agency for the region. "The biggest barrier for any large-scale renewable energy project is grid transmission."

However, Morgan Stanley and Atlantis have still to secure planning permission, another major hurdle for renewable energy projects. To date, no large-scale tidal energy project has made it past the concept stage in Britain, while pilot projects a fraction the size of this Pentland Firth proposal, have taken years to come to trials. .

"There are a number of barriers to entry in the tidal market," said Gareth Zahir-Bill from Triodos Renewables, the specialist investment bank that helped to finance the small-scale Marine Current Turbine project, which recently went live in Northern Ireland. "That was 13 years in the process," he said.

A spokesman at the Department for Energy and Climate Change said: "Data centres are significant users of energy, they are responsible for 3% of electricity use in the UK and this is expected to double by 2020."

He acknowledged that grid connection and planning issues hindered the development of renewable energy, but added: "The planning bill currently before parliament will streamline the consent system and our renewable energy strategy to be published in the spring will be aimed at overcoming barriers such as grid connection."

Atlantis can apply for a seabed lease from January 2009. Leases will be awarded next summer. Atlantis must also receive consent from the Scottish government. Morgan Stanley will also need approval from the Highlands Council to construct the data centre and lay the private cable to transmit power from the turbines.

But the ongoing financial crisis will not derail the plan, said Woodley: "The longer term risks and opportunity presented by climate change and energy security remain. We will continue to seek investments that promise scale and commercial viability."

Atlantis offerings
Atlantis which successfully completed the installation, grid-connection and commissioning of a 150kW Nereus tidal current turbine in May 2008 at San Remo, Victoria, Australia, offers two approaches to tidal power.

Nereus is horizontal axis turbine targeted for shallow (below 25 metres) open water, river and hydro tail race deployment. The turbine uses Aquafoils to capture momentum from the flow of water and drive a chain perpendicular to the flow. The turbine is robust, can withstand water flow containing significant debris, is fully scalable and has been developed over a 6 year period with multiple tow-testing and continual optimisation.

Atlantis' Solon design is based on the ducted Horizontal Axis Turbine. Its differentiating factors are in its blade design, power take-off system and material science.being a horizontal axis turbine targeted for deep (25+ meters) open water deployment. Developed over the last 2 years, it is ideally suited to floating arrays in water depths exceeding 40 meters and can be configured based on the flow regime.

Solon has been designed from first principles using extensive computer modelling and following tow-testing in August 2008, is likely to be the world’s most efficient water-to-wire turbine.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Web: http://www.atlantisresourcescorporation.com