La Rance Tidal Power Plant
La Rance Tidal Power Plant
Find out La Rance experimental tidal power plant in France
tidal | waveLa Rance Tidal Barrage (
Usine marémotrice de la Rance) was built in the 1960's near St. Malo in France. A dam
330 metres long was build in front of a 22 square kilometer basin. The
tidal range (the difference between high and low tides) averages
8 metres and reach up to 13.5 metres.
The plant consists of
24 bulb type turbine generators 5.35 metres in diameter, 470 tonnes in weight, and rated at
10MW each which generate electricity whether the tide is going in or out (developed by
Électricité de France). This peak of
240MW of power is sufficient to power 4% of the homes in Brittany - equivalent to the consumption of a town the size of Rennes. The
average power generated is
68MW for an annual output of around
600 million kWh units of electricity.
In November 1996 the
La Rance tidal power plant celebrated 30 years of active service during which time
16 billion kWh of electricity were generated
without major incident or mechanical breakdown. The initial capital cost of the power plant (620 million Francs) has long since been recovered, and the cost of electricity production is now
below 0.02 Euro per kWh.
Article Last Modified: 15:32, 19th Aug 2008
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