Scotrenewables Tidal Power has set another record with its SR2000 2MW floating tidal turbine with the unit clocking up over 1GWh in a record pace for the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney.
Andrew Scott, Chief Executive Officer of Scotrenewables Tidal Power said: "This is an astonishing achievement by our technology and by the Scotrenewables team who have worked so hard to make it happen."
"I'm comfortable in highlighting we have had a small number of outages within this period, including where we have had to make maintenance interventions but, because of the accessible nature of our technology, we have been able to respond to these quickly and with very low cost vessels, validating the engineering approach we have pioneered here at Scotrenewables."
The SR2000, the company's first full scale turbine, was launched last year from the Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast before being towed to the Orkney Islands for grid connected testing. Initial generation started earlier this year and the company quickly set a world record with the highest export level from a tidal turbine of 2.2MW.
Commenting on the SR2000's performance, Neil Kermode, Managing Director of EMEC said: "It is exhilarating to witness the unprecedented performance of Scotrenewables' tidal turbine. It is clear and demonstrable progress for the team, but it is also progress for this exciting and innovative sector as a whole as it moves towards commercialisation."
Scotrenewables recently announced it had appointed financial advisors, Simmons & Company Ltd, to assist with a fund raising effort to support the business transition to commercial operations. With reference to the recent performance the company's Chief Finance Officer Chris Milne said: "We are confident we have a very unique and exciting proposition here at Scotrenewables, and this latest performance further underlines that and is accelerating commercial demand for our technology."
ABOUT SCOTRENEWABLES TIDAL POWER:
Scotrenewables Tidal Power Limited is an innovative Scottish engineering company focused on the development of a tidal energy turbine technology with the potential to produce a step-change reduction in the cost of energy from tidal currents. The company's novel floating technology offers a low cost solution for simplified and safe manufacture, installation, access and maintenance along with the ability to use low cost, small workboats for all offshore operations. The company currently employs 26 staff with offices in Orkney and Edinburgh.
The technology has been under continuous engineering development, including rigorous testing of scaled systems in both tank conditions and open ocean environments, since the company was founded in Orkney in 2002. In 2012 the company achieved a world's first when it exported power to the UK grid from its 250kW floating scale model.
The current SR2000, the world's largest operating tidal turbine, was launched from the Harland & Wolff shipyard, Belfast, in May 2016 before being towed to Orkney.
The SR2000 project has been supported by Scottish Enterprise's WATERS II scheme along with investments from Scotrenewables' shareholders which include ABB, DP Energy, Fred Olsen, Total and Scottish Government via the Renewable Energy Investment Fund (REIF). The testing programme at EMEC is supported via the FORESEA Interreg-NWE funded project.
Scotrenewables has been selected by the European Commission to lead on the engineering and delivery of an enhanced model of the SR2000 machine. Leveraging £7m Horizon 2020 funding Scotrenewables will lead an industrial consortium to optimise the SR2000 under the "FloTEC" project which is scheduled to run until 2019.
Click here to read the full press release.
Media contacts at Scotrenewables Tidal Power Ltd:
James Murray, Business Development Manager: 01856 851641 / james@scotrenewables.com
Paul Taylor, Taylor Keogh Communications: 020 8392 8250 / paul@taylorkeogh.com
For Scottish media enquiries, David Budge: 0141 249 0396 / david.budge@budgepr.com
