2 MW floating turbine sends power to the UK national grid
You’ve probably heard of the concept—using oceanic tidal flows to generate electricity. After the concept lived a sci-fi storyboard kind of existence for decades, a concept for an affordable technology to generate electricity from the sea has evolved into reality, thanks to the efforts of a Scottish engineering firm that has been actively developing a novel technology for floating turbines since 2002.
Scotrenewables Tidal Power Limited has announced it reached a milestone in tidal generation that is deployable and delivers power to the grid. Its floating turbine reached full rated power in operations at the European Marine Energy Centre in the Orkney Islands off the northern tip of Scotland, where the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean converge.
According to reports from the company, the ‘SR2000’ was re-connected to its subsea cable in a low cost connection operation that took under an hour. Following energization, the 500-tonne floating tidal turbine commenced generation and power export to the local Orkney grid, the company said in a press release on Friday. Since then the turbine has been undergoing a phased testing program leading to full, 2MW rated export capacity being achieved last week.
Lowering operating costs was critical design element
What makes the Scotrenewables design successful is that the company’s goal from the outset was to develop a turbine with low installation and maintenance costs. This generated a floating turbine with retractable rotors allowing it to be easily towed to and from site with small, locally available vessels.
According to CEO Andrew Scott, the company’s SR2000 floating turbine’s performance “resets the bar for the costs of delivering tidal power.”
“After developing the initial concept more than a decade ago, it’s fantastic to now see the latest evolution of the tidal turbine proving its low cost power generation capability onsite—connected to the UK national grid,” offshore engineer and company founder Barry Johnston said.
2011 North Sea tests of 250 kW scale model delivered proof of concept
An earlier 250 kW floating scale model, the SR250, was the first large scale floating tidal turbine in the world, undergoing a two and a half-year testing program at EMEC where the turbine clocked 4,000 hours of deployment under harsh operating conditions associated with the North Sea. The SR250 was fully connected to the national grid, verifying the floating tidal turbine approach at large scale, the company said.
The development of the floating turbine concept from Scotrenewables has been supported by investments from French energy giant Total, Irish renewable energy developer DP Energy, and Silicon Valley VC firm ABB Technology Ventures.
In 2012, the company secured major new investment from ABB Technology Ventures, giving it one of the strongest investor partnerships in the tidal sector, with further investment from DP Energy, a leading tidal array development and the Scottish Government’s Renewables Energy Investment fund in 2015.
In 2016, the company launched its current 2 mW turbine, the SR2000, the culmination of more than 12 years of research, design and testing. “This is the largest and most powerful tidal turbine in the world,” the company said in a statement. Scotrenewables said it is currently discussing turbine supply opportunities for its floating turbines in the UK, France, Canada and the Far East.
