Salty Power

A salty solution for power generation

Efforts to generate power from the salinity difference between seawater and fresh water from rivers and lakes are already well advanced in Europe, where two alternative approaches are being tried out.

Last week Redstack, based in Sneek in the Netherlands, was granted permits to build a pilot salt battery at the Afsluitdijk dyke in the north of the country, fuelled by waters from an inland lake and the North Sea. The plant should initially be able to deliver 5 kilowatts, but the company wants to increase this to 50 kilowatts over the next few years.