What is an Energy Island?
An energy island is a floating structure which is designed to harness energy from renewable sources and transmit that energy back to land. There are a number of ways in which an energy island could work, with a number of experimental proposals being brought to investors in the early 2000s, when the concept first began to garner serious attention. There are a number of potential advantages to using an energy island as a power source, not least of which is that it decreases dependence on non-renewable sources of energy like coal and petroleum. Essentially, an energy island is designed like an oil rig, except that instead of collecting petroleum from the ocean, it can gather energy from wind, waves, and the sun. Some proposals have also included a potential for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), a form of alternative energy which harnesses the temperature differential between the warm upper layers of the ocean and the cold depths to generate energy. A mixture of energy generation tec
The Energy Island, a joint venture lead by Dominic Michaelis, draws on the broad range of research activities being conducted across the University of Southampton in a number of specialist research groups. A virtual team, collaborating with industry and academics internationally is working towards the goal of a floating energy island capable of delivering gigawatt levels of energy from renewable sources. The modular structure of the Energy Island permits scaling and adaptation to suit a variety of different locations, climates and demands while facilitating economic feasibility through shared infrastructure, volume production and low operating costs. The flexibility of siting offered by a floating platform also offers a critical advantage to the more densely populated countries such as the United Kingdom where obtaining environmentally and socially acceptable locations for the siting of large renewable energy capture installations is a major hurdle for any new development.
