Japan’s Giant Deep Sea Turbine Test Offers Hope for Infinite Green Energy
For more than a decade, the Japanese corporation IHI has been developing an underwater turbine that uses the energy of deep ocean currents and converts it into a stable and reliable source of electricity.
Energy-hungry and dependent on fossil fuels, Japan has successfully tested a system that can provide a constant, stable form of renewable energy, independent of wind or solar.
For more than a decade, the Japanese heavy machinery manufacturer IHI Corp. develops an underwater turbine that uses the energy of deep ocean currents and converts it into a stable and reliable source of electricity. The giant machine resembles an airplane, with two counter-rotating turbine fans instead of jet engines and a central “fuselage” that houses the buoyancy control system. The 330-tonne prototype, named Kairyu, is designed to be anchored to the seafloor at depths of 30–50 meters (100–160 ft).
In commercial production, it is planned to place turbines in the Kuroshio Current, one of the most powerful in the world, which runs along the east coast of Japan, and transmit energy through submarine cables.
In February, IHI completed a three-year technology demonstration study with NEDO. His team tested the system in the waters around the Tokara Islands in southwestern Japan by hanging Kairyu from a ship and sending power back to the ship. First, he forced the ship to artificially generate current, and then suspended the operation of the turbines in Kuroshio.
Testing has shown that the prototype can generate the expected 100 kilowatts of stable power, and the company now plans to scale up to a full 2 megawatt system that could be commercially operational in the 2030s or later.
