INNOVATION May-June 2018

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trying to destroy the device. We need to figure out how to make a device that can deal with forces that push you in a different direction every 10 seconds.” This essentially comes down to a choice between floating the mechanism on or near the sea surface with a light anchor system, or mooring it more heavily and permanently into the seabed. Both choices have, according to the latest research, little adverse effect on the environment. Buckham notes, however, that “marine spaces are highly utilised. If a device is close to populated areas, just the visual can be an issue.” In BC, tidal energy, which comes from the twice-a-day movement of tides, is further along in the demonstration process than wave power, even though, as Buckham points out, with waves, “the nature of the physical medium is more powerful and there is more energy to get there than from tidal. But with that higher reward comes a higher degree of difficulty,” and hence a slower development. For example, one company, Vancouver-based Mavi Innovations, is working on commissioning a tidal energy project in Blind Channel, off Thurlow Island north of Campbell River. (Unlike wave power, tidal power resources are better on the east side of Vancouver Island, where numerous channels or inlets concentrate the tides.) Mavi’s project integrates their Mi1 floating turbine— similar to a vertical axis wind turbine, but underwater—into an existing diesel grid to power a remote wilderness resort. “This kind of small-scale deployment is just getting operational now,” says Dr. Curran Crawford, P.Eng., also an Associate Professor in UVic’s Mechanical Engineering Department and co-leader with Brad Buckham of the new Pacific Regional Institute for Marine Energy Discovery, “but will show how tidal energy can work as part of a group of renewable energy sources, along with offshore wind and wave. Because we are going to need them all, eventually. We may not need extra or back-up power now, but in the

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