Atlantis Resources Co, a London-based marine energy developer, had the idea of building a tidal power plant with an initial capacity of 50 MW. Gujarat, an Indian state, has already made some plans for the installation of the first commercial tidal power plant in India. The project will be organized in partnership with Guajar Corporation Limited.
It seems that Atlantis Resources Corporation and the government of Gujarat have signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding), with the purpose of assembling the power plant in the next two years. The plant may have a capacity of 250 MW and its costs are believed to raise to about $165 million.
The reason of the high costs in tidal power plants is represented by the requirements of extensive civil works. In the case of a commercially viable project, low costs are needed.
Guajar Power Corporation wishes to buy the power and set up some tariffs that are not higher than the ones offered to large-scale solar power plants in India. The costs provided to conventional power plants are almost 8 times lower than those offered to large-scale power plants.
When the front-end and engineering design will be ready, the final costs will be established. The final tariff will be determined once the front-end engineering and design stage will have been completed.
This would help predict the quantity of water which should be used for the power generation. Thus, the power generation can be easily anticipated and will remain constant for a long time. This will make the investors approve the credit for the ambitious project.
Atlantis agreed to produce turbines for a tidal power plant in northern Scotland last year. India’s tidal power plant, though, is planned to be the largest, having a 378 MW capacity.
