The Power and Water Corporation in the Northern Territory has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tenax Energy to build a two-megawatt tidal energy plant and tidal energy testing centre. The project will be built in the Clarence Strait between Darwin and Melville Island and is expected to be operational within the next 15 months.Power and Water's manager for sustainable energy, Trevor Horman, says tidal power has the potential to provide a significant percentage of Darwin's electricity supply. "The idea with the testing station is to test out a number of different turbines and technologies in the Clarence Strait," he said."With these turbines it's about the flow of the tide rather then the height. (The project) is reasonably close to an existing power line, so we'll give it a trial over a couple of years and see how the technologies work out there... but we do hope this will prove a safe, reliable and inexhaustible energy source."
Power and Water says the region is one of the largest tidal resources close to a major centre, with a potential generation capacity of 450 megawatts. Darwin's current peak demand is about 300 megawatts.
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