News and Events

Bournemouth University explore tidal power

12 July 2012

BU’s academics explore renewable energy within the community.

Academics from across BU are working with the Borough of Poole and Transition Town Poole to help raise awareness of tidal power.

PTEP is a community led group exploring the opportunity to harness energy from Poole Harbour, for the good of the community.

Karen Thompson, Lecturer in Management in The Business School said: “Locally we are looking to develop the green economy, this ties in with a number of UK government initiatives, and what this means is trying to look for new ways to combine economic growth, with enterprise, in ways that restore the environment rather than damage it. We need to invest in new infrastructure to support new ways of working and new ways of living that will actually lead us in the right direction to increase human welfare within planetary limits”.

Poole Harbour is the second largest natural harbour in the world, and PTEP aims to harness latent power of the harbour in a way that is economically sustainable, sensitive to the local environment and contributes to the vision for clean energy.

Dr Zulfiqar Khan, Director of the Sustainable Design Research Centre said: “In terms of our design and development our mechanical current turbines are an innovative design solution because of their dimensions, such as it will not provide any invasion into the scenic beauty. The other thing would be they would most likely be submerged so no one would be able to see them and in terms of efficiency, it will be enough to provide electricity for a contained unit, for example, a household”.

The group are investigating the feasibility of harnessing different forms of energy from the harbour. Heat and tidal energy are currently under investigation.

Tilak Ginige, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law in The School of Applied Sciences said “this is a perfect example of a multidisciplinary approach to explore the feasibility of harnessing marine renewable energy involving the community, staff and students”.