The University of Nottingham has recently developed a spin-off company, NIMROD Energy Ltd, that is utilizing developments pioneered by professor Seamus Garvey and what are known as Integrated Compressed Air Renewable Energy Systems (ICARES) to bring wind energy into a cheap, sustainable range to help supplement power needs worldwide. In fact the new systems if implemented fully are expected to reduce power generation at as little as £10,000 per megawatt hour, roughly 20 percent less than the cheapest competing energy of pumped hydro energy.

The system will work by utilizing massive offshore wind turbines over 230 meters (roughly 750 feet) in diameter to pump pressurized air into underwater Energy Bags (or into geological formations if deep water is not readily available) where the compressed air is stored and then fed into energy generators to provide power as necessary. Being located deep under water the additional oceanic pressures can help add force to the compressed air and use a combination of both the natural wind currents as well as the ocean’s depths to both store and utilize energy to a degree previously considered unobtainable.

Professor Garvey’s drive to engineer and implement systems such as this has been based on the fact that the UK is currently in dire need of some sort of “energy revolution” to help provide power to the population in the near future. He speculates that with a full development using the ICARES method offshore wind turbines could easily produce roughly 25% of all alternative energy used by the country within the next 15 years, and already government plans in support of the project have been made for the first construction of one of the massive turbines needed to power the system to begin as early as May 2011. Should this prove effective in the UK it could also lead to NIMROD’s eventual expansion into foreign markets as well, potentially bringing wind energy to a sustainable and much needed new height in as little as a few short decades.