Underwater Kites... And The World's First Low Flow Tidal Stream Project

Menter Mon, a social enterprise company in North Wales has started 'Morlais', a scheme to develop the Tidal Energy industry in Anglesey. With the help of blue energy company Minesto, the Holyhead site is hoped to produce up to 100MW of renewable energy over the next decade. This is enough energy to power 36,000 homes.

To produce tidal energy, there usually needs to be really fast flowing water, pushing turbines to generating electricity. But this technology is totally different. It is the world's first ever low flow tidal stream project and works by flying kites at high speeds underwater. This means it can be put in places where the water doesn't move so quickly.

Minesto CEO Dr Martin Edlund said: "This is particularly good for Wales because it has very limited high flow areas but an abundance of the low to medium flow areas. Our technology makes the Welsh natural resource go from useless to extremely valuable."

Not only will this produce totally renewable energy for Wales, but it will also produce energy all the time. Unlike wind turbines that will only work when the wind is spinning the blades, the Minesto kites will generate energy consistently. Dr Edlund said this technology will be a key factor in helping Wales reach net zero carbon emissions and will eventually reduce the costs of energy prices too.

Menter Mon believe that this project will benefit the local area in more ways than just that, creating 100 well paid jobs in the first ten years.

The managing director, Dafydd Gruffydd said: "On one level it's about creating green, renewable power. Equally important, or if not, more important it's about creating opportunity, supporting the economy and developing the supply chain."

It's not just big companies that are going green. Smaller ones are making changes to how they are operating for the sake of the planet too. Llaeth Beynon Dairy farm in Swansea usually supply their produce to big companies in London.

After they were forced to throw away 7,000 litres of milk during the coronavirus lockdowns, they decided to set up a vending machine business in their local village. This allowed them to sell fresh milk only a mile away from the farm, meaning the travel miles are "very, very low."

Ifan Beynon, the owner of Llaeth Beynon said: "Ideally I would like to sell all our milk locally. We've got a big population here so we could sell all our milk locally and reduce our food mileage which is the most important thing."

Plastic waste is also non-existent. Ifan chose to use reusable glass bottles that people can refill them time and time again.