Leask Marine, an Orkney based marine renewables service provider, has been working with Sustainable Marine Energy (SME) to prepare the deployment site for SME’s PLAT-O tidal platform.
Leask Marine has been providing vessels and diving personnel to support the initial subsea drilling operations for anchoring points of the PLAT-O floating tidal platform.
The company is about to start works related to subsea cable operations, ahead of the planned deployment of the device Leask Marine is scheduled to conduct this summer in Orkney.
Leask Marine already collaborated with SME by providing multi-cat vessel, C-Salvor, along with deck crew and a dive team for the marine operations, during one of PLAT-O’s trials at Yarmouth testing site.
In April 2015, SME signed a long term testing contract with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), securing one of the test berths at the Fall of Warness tidal test site where it will deploy five PLAT-O systems in an array over the next two years, starting from 2016.
Subsequently, SME bought 16 SIT turbines with a capacity of 62 kW each from Schottel Hydro which will be delivered to SME over the course of two years.
SME’s PLAT-O tidal platform is the buoyant platform that is taut moored to the seabed using an anchoring solution.
The platform can be moored to rock, shingle and sand, and in variable sea depths, with the flexible number of turbines that can be mounted on the platform.
PLAT-O has been commissioned and is currently located at SME’s facility in Kirkwall, Orkney, awaiting the deployment.