Blue Energy Power Station Opens in the Netherlands

November 28, 2014

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November 28, 2014 – What is blue energy? It is energy derived from whenever fresh and saltwater meet. Watch the video to understand how this form of energy works. Through a simple exchange of ions between the salt and freshwater through an ion selective membrane you end up with what is in effect a very large flow battery producing electricity.

The inventor of the technology, REDStack, estimates the worldwide potential for blue energy at between 1.4 and 2.6 Tera-watts. The first blue energy pilot plant opened this week on the Dutch coast at Afsluitdijk. It is estimated that the potential for this pilot plant is to expand from its initial 50 Megawatts, enough to power 100 homes, to 200 Megawatts or more.

Unlike other renewables blue energy can never switch off. The key is the specialized membranes which theoretically can generate power from water of different salinity. In Afsluitdijk it is seawater and river water separated by the ion selective membranes. They theoretically are capable of producing 1 Megawatt of electricity from water flows of both fresh and salt water at the rate of 1 cubic meter per second. The company estimates that The Netherlands has the capacity to produce 3 GigaWatts of power from blue energy, enough to power 500,000 Dutch homes.

For commercial success blue energy will need to ramp up the size of its membranes to millions of square meters. This is considered technically feasible should the pilot project results provide a successful proof of concept.