Research + Development

Hales Energy Ltd has the use for an extended period of workshops located on the South Coast suitable for engineering R&D.

The present busines plan includes the continuation of prototype testing and modification to our one metre prototype deployed from its steel pontoon which is moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf with kind permission of Urban Management Ltd, London for several more months. This will include special water flow testing and recording using new high tech equipment to calculate the kinetic energy levels in this area of the Thames.

Starting Spring 2011, Hales Energy Ltd will start construction of a new special Race Track Type water flow test tank in East Sussex which will be used for testing new blade profiles and configurations together with various ducting profiles to suit a variety of applications. Specialised torque sensor and water flow equipment will be installed in the tank for testing to a certification level and also aid in preparation for the necessary fish friendly trials this turbine will pass.

The turbine design will also be put through the new Micro Generation Certification Scheme to allow micro units to operate in the UK "feed in" tariff scheme.

Hales Energy Ltd has produced and circulated a paper entitled "Methods and Ptotocols for Testing and Evaluating Tidal Stream Turbine Prototypes" to aid early stage developers and future inventors in the ways forward.

On completion of prototype testing, the test tank with then be dismantled in sections and sold on while Hales Energy Ltd then concentrate on developing the turbine design into the three areas of possible application.

a) Micro turbines modelled on the prototype test units that can be used for simple generation or water pumping or purification on a small scale, possibly for third world countries or disaster areas.

b) Standard Tidal Stream turbine applications using a special designed shaped concrete vessel that can be floated out to the operating site, flooded down to the seaboard where its weight and hydrodynamic shape will press it down as the tidal flow increases. Inside the concrete vessel as well as the air chambers will be the PM generator system and air cylinders ready to retrieve the unit on completion of work period.

c) The future will see these turbines which are designed to work effectively in the 1.5 to 2.00 m/s, ranges of water flows which then bring in the large areas of ocean currents such as the Agulhas Current off the coast of South Africa and the Kuroshio Current off Japan , produce energy harvesting systems so they then start to become a viable energy sources.

**IMPORTANT NEWS - AUTUMN 2009 **

Hales Marine Energy has linked up with the Faculty of Engineering, Kingston University, London, one of the top engineering university faculties in the UK to forward the development and testing of the Hales Tidal Turbine design. A provisional test site has been selected on the tidal section on the River Thames for the first prototype trials.