The European Commission’s research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, has awarded a grant of €10 million (£7.75 million) to advance the commercialisation of Scotrenewables’ floating tidal energy technology.
The Floating Tidal Energy Commercialisation (FloTEC) project will advance Scotrenewables’ current 2 MW floating tidal technology, the SR2000, with the development of a mark 2 turbine, according to EMEC.
The SR2000-M2 prototype will be installed alongside the SR2000-M1 at EMEC’s tidal test site at the Fall of Warness in Orkney, forming a 4 MW floating tidal array to serve as a demonstration platform for commercially viable tidal stream energy as well as optimising energy extraction for arrays in locally varying tidal resources.
There will be a significant focus on reducing the levelised cost of energy (LCoE) at every stage of the design, build and demonstration of the SR2000-M2, with significant capital and operational cost reductions expected, EMEC’s press release reads.
James Murray , Business Development Manager at Scotrenewables Tidal Power, said: “The ambition of FloTEC is to drive down the cost of tidal energy through the delivery of a number of targeted innovations on an enhanced variant of Scotrenewables’ SR2000 floating tidal turbine. Engineering will commence in early 2016 and will include advanced power conversion hardware, low cost manufacturing technologies, load reduction mooring components and integrated energy storage.”
Led by Scotrenewables Tidal Power, FloTEC brings together industrial and research organisations involved in tidal energy including DP Energy, Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries, the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), ABB, EireComposites, Technology from Ideas, University College Cork, and SKF.
The FloTEC project is expected to demonstrate the potential for floating tidal systems to provide low-cost, high-value energy to the European grid mix.
The announcement was made by the Scotland’s energy Minister Fergus Ewing during his keynote address at the International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) in Edinburgh.