A startup based out of British Columbia is developing an underwater turbine that it believes could replace popular diesel generators with significantly cleaner energy production methods.
Swordfish Energy was launched from Vancouver Island by the eclectic entrepreneur Dorn Beattie in 2018.
Beattie is behind Swordfish’s flagship product, the Compeller, a corkscrew-shaped turbine designed to generate clean energy from ocean tides and river currents.
Typical turbines have gears and spin the rotor inside a fixed stator. The Swordfish rotor, however, spins around the stator without gears. This “direct drive” setup makes it lighter, more powerful, and more efficient.
The company’s patent-pending Compeller technology is capable of producing up to two megawatts per turbine. That’s enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
A 2008 study from Bedard, Roger, et al. suggested that the amount of energy which can be captured from waves, tides, and river currents in the U.S. is enough to power nearly 70 million homes.
And unlike, say, wind turbines, Swordfish’s hydro-kinetic devices are virtually harmless to underwater wildlife. Also dissimilar is the reliability of the energy source itself—currents and tides are more consistent and predictable than the flow of wind or hours of sunshine, for example.
In 2022, Swordfish was selected for the Ocean Startup Challenge. Following that, the firm battle-tested its product at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, Scotland, and the Compeller been nominated for Prince William and David Attenborough’s Earth Shot Prize.
Most recently, Swordfish was named to Douglas magazine’s “10 to Watch.”
Established in 2006 by Page One Publishing, Douglas is a business magazine and media brand based on Vancouver Island. Now in their 16th year, the 10 to Watch Awards annually celebrate regional startups.
Vancouver Island’s cleantech ecosystem has been growing steadily, data shows.
Canada has the largest coastline in the world, yet the federal government and the provincial government of BC are ignoring the tidal current, wave energy and tidal turbine potential (plus of course the offshore wind energy that hasn’t been evaluated so far. I’m very glad to see the Compeller technology being advanced for the BC Clean energy needs in the 21st century. This will prove a boon to the First Nations that are currently reliant upon diesel generators for their electricity. But BC residents should have the option to use sustainable alternative energy technologies to prevent the increase in the global heating crises.