Engineering news
Atlantis has received €20.3 million (£17.5 million) in Horizon 2020 grant funding from the European Commission for the Demotide project, which will design, build and operate a 6MW turbine array, MeyGen Phase 1B, in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth in northern Scotland.
MeyGen Phase 1B, also known as Project Stroma, will commence construction in 2017 and first power is expected in 2018. It will be built adjacent to the existing 6MW MeyGen Phase 1A project, which delivered first power to the grid in November last year. Together, Phases 1A and 1B complete the foundation for full scale build out at the site, which has an awarded seabed lease for almost 400MW of installed capacity.
The Demotide project will demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of drilled foundation systems and larger rotor diameter turbines, and aims to further de-risk the industry and provide “a robust path to significant cost reduction in the European tidal power sector”.
The Demotide consortium consists of UK-based technology supplier Marine Current Turbines (an Atlantis company); DEME, comprising DEME Blue Energy and GeoSea, a marine operations and owner of a versatile fleet of construction vessels based in Belgium; INNOSEA, an independent engineering firm based in France which provides technical expertise and multidisciplinary engineering services to the marine renewable energy industry; and Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, who have been at the forefront of marine renewable energy research for more than 30 years.
Atlantis chief executive, Tim Cornelius, said: “The Demotide project is the next significant step in delivering cost effective, reliable tidal stream generation for Europe. This project will help the tidal stream industry demonstrate reductions in the price per unit of electricity by increasing the energy yield per pound of investment. Demotide will set tidal on a path to cost parity with offshore wind by 2020.”
INNOSEA marine engineering chief executive, Hakim Mouslim, added: “INNOSEA will be bringing additional engineering and operational support strength to the Demotide consortium with an objective of making tidal energy costs more competitive within the offshore renewables market.”