In the first stage, the Sahara Forest Project aims to produce up to 130 tonnes of organic vegetables per year from just 7 acres of previously deemed ‘unusable’ land. The full scale of the project is set to reach 490 acres in the coming years.

“This is one of the most technically complex and satisfying projects we’ve had the pleasure to work on,” said Tom Bentham, Senior Partner at Max Fordham, an engineering firm collaborating with the Sahara Forest Project. “We’ve collaborated with experts across many countries and disciplines to bring this project to fruition. The salt water and desert environments are both testing on their own; when put together they create one of the harshest environments there is for engineering components.”

Max Fordham carried out research into technical aspects of the project including thermodynamic analysis of the greenhouse (to provide optimum growing conditions for crops with minimum resource input), desalination techniques, and the potential climatic effects of adding moisture to desert air.

The research included building and operating an experimental rig in the Qatari desert, to verify conclusions in the field. This culminated in the development of a mathematical computer model of the entire Sahara Forest Project system, which Max Fordham and SFP then used to investigate resource flows through the system and projected investment costs and returns.

“Jordan has a lot of sunlight, it has a lot of desert, it has sea water, it has CO2,” said Joakim Hauge, SFP Project Director. “That is what we need to produce food, water and renewable energy.”

The second stage of the collaboration was focused on the engineering design of the Sahara Forest Project system, firstly for the Pilot Project in Qatar, which opened in 2012 and operated for a year, then more recently for the larger launch station opened in Jordan. Max Fordham designed the saltwater cooling system for the greenhouse, as well as the services infrastructure, which joins up and enables the different energy and growing technologies, which comprise the SFP system.

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Tidal and wave energy installation company, Green Marine, installed the Penguin wave energy converter at the beginning of March at the European Marine Energy Centre’s grid-connected wave test site.

This is the first of three wave energy converters due to be installed at European Marine Energy Centre over the next three years as part of the Clean Energy from Ocean Waves project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

“This is a tremendous milestone for Wello and all Clean Energy from Ocean Waves partners, but also for the wave energy sector as a whole,” said Neil Kermode, Managing Director of the European Marine Energy Centre. “Not only has Wello’s Penguin survived heavy swell and stormy conditions since being deployed, it is now generating power into the local grid. Congratulations to everyone who has worked towards this moment, and we look forward to the future learning that will come from this project.”

Led by energy company Fortum, the generation of power is a major milestone within the Clean Energy from Ocean Waves project, which aims to ready the Penguin technology for commercialisation by developing the first grid-connected wave energy array in the UK, focusing on lowering the levelised cost of energy and developing an efficient supply chain to support larger wave power projects in the future.

“This is a very exciting period in the project for us, and the Wello office in Orkney has been buzzing with people eager to watch the screens showing the live generation feeds,” said Mikko Muoniovaara, Senior Project Manager at Fortum. “This has proven the viability of the Penguin concept, as not only can the technology survive in the harsh waves around Orkney, but it can generate power from them. For Fortum, this is very promising progress.”

The Clean Energy from Ocean Waves consortium spans the full value chain including research organisations, wave converter technology developers, marine service providers and a large multi-national utility company. In addition to Fortum, the joint project consists of Wello, Green Marine, Uppsala University, Plymouth University, the University of Exeter and the European Marine Energy Centre.

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