For the first time ever, the electricity made by the marine currents is distributed by a national grid.
It is happening in Messina where the prototype of the patented Kobold vertical axis turbine manufactured by Ponte de Archimede S.p.A., under its Chairman, Elio Matacena, has been connected to the ENEL National Grid which it will be able to supply with a constant flow of clean and renewable energy, following an experimental period to optimise output.
At the present time, the prototype in the Strait of Messina, which offers the best conditions for exploiting marine currents, is able to produce up to 40 kW.
To further increase the output of the platform anchored off the Ganzirri Coast, under which the three-bladed turbine has been installed, 39 solar panels have been positioned on the upper surface, making it an icon of sustainable development in the energy field.
“This project is an outstanding ‘first’ for Italy,” said Elio Matacena, “and I delighted that Messina can become the first city in the world to receive electricity from the sea. The marine currents in the Strait, that which terrorised and constantly threatened sailors in ancient times, now provide an inexhaustible supply of energy.”
Being linked into the ENEL National Grid is a major achievement for our initiative, whose soundness has an important “guarantor”: UNIDO – the United Nations Industrial Development Organization – which has adopted our technology,” continued Elio Matacena, “considering it to be the most efficient all of those that now exist, so that it can be disseminated on an experimental basis in the archipelagos of the People's Republic of China, Indonesia and the Philippines. Steps are now being taken to transfer the technology to Asia in order to enable the island-dwellers in these three countries to shake off their “energy slavery”.
“We delighted that, thanks also to ENEL, Italy can claim this new and important world record,” said Livio Gallo, the Director of the ENEL Infrastructure and Networks Division, “which is all the more significant because it has been achieved by producing electricity through technological innovation, safeguarding the environment. “Our company,” he added, “has it all events been constantly committed to renewable energy. And it was precisely here in Sicily that we have set up a number of wind farms, joining other hydroelectric schemes, and we are now awaiting the decree to be issued shortly to be able to begin work at Priolo, in the Province of Siracusa on implementing the innovative Archimedes project, which incorporates a gas cycle combined with a thermodynamic solar energy plant for the very first time.”
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