Energy Bag to test at EMEC

EMEC is pleased to announce another innovative technology to be tested on one of our intermediate scale sites. The University of Nottingham will be trialling their Energy Bag concept (pictured) – a compressed air energy storage system – in EMEC’s scale wave test site in Scapa Flow.

Professor Seamus D. Garvey, leading the project said:

“We are delighted to announce that we will be carrying out the world’s first offshore installation of an Energy Bag at the European Marine Energy Centre in the first few months of 2012. The work, which is funded by E.ON, will involve the installation and cycling of a 4m diameter open base Energy Bag in one of EMEC’s scale test sites, to prove the bag’s performance underwater and investigate any unforeseen problems with offshore installation.

“Compressed air energy storage has the potential to economically deal with the intermittency inherent to most forms of renewable energy, and subsea storage in Energy Bags is a new technology which promises very low costs. This installation is an important step towards commercialisation, and we’re really looking forward to getting up to Orkney and working with the team at the European Marine Energy Centre.”