Atlantis Resources has been granted €20.3 million by the European Commission for the next phase of the MeyGen tidal array project.
The funding was awarded through Horizon 2020 program 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.
The construction of the MeyGen Phase 1B, also known as Project Stroma, will start in 2017, while the first power is expected in 2018, Atlantis said.
It will be built adjacent to the existing 6MW MeyGen Phase 1A project, which delivered first power to the grid in November last year.
The Demotide project consortium consists of Atlantis’ subsidiary Marine Current Turbines; DEME, comprising DEME Blue Energy and GeoSea; an independent engineering firm from France INNOSEA; and Queen’s University Belfast.
Atlantis CEO , Tim Cornelius, said: “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 will contribute to the Demotide consortium with additional engineering and operational support, while the Queen’s University Belfast will be tasked with monitoring the system’s performance.
The Demotide is expected to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of drilled foundation systems and larger rotor diameter turbines with the aim to lower the risks and costs associated with tidal energy industry.
Atlantis said that Phases 1A and 1B together complete the foundation for full scale build out at the site, which has an awarded seabed lease for almost 400MW of installed capacity.