Minesto has revealed plans to expand the commercial roll-out of its Deep Green technology in Wales by increasing the planned installed capacity of its tidal energy array in Holyhead Deep to 80MW.
Swedish tidal energy developer has today, February 9, 2017, submitted a scoping report to UK consenting authorities Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW), asking for their scoping opinion for development of an 80MW site in Holyhead Deep, North Wales.
The scoping request represents the first step in the process of securing all necessary leases and consents to scale up the site for which Minesto currently holds a lease agreement for 10MW from the Crown Estate.
The move comes as Minesto concluded that such a scale for its first commercial project is appropriate from both a business and a technology development perspective.
Martin Edlund , CEO of Minesto, said: “Our projection of an 80MW project in Holyhead Deep gives a levelized cost of energy (LCoE) which is 50% lower than for a 10MW project. This substantial scale-up of the project’s commercial strength will make it even more attractive to site investors. Taking this step also means that we are creating early opportunities for Minesto to sell Deep Green power plants to the newly incorporated site development company Holyhead Deep Ltd.”
This is underpinned by an in-depth study analyzing the site’s capacity by Xodus Group which concluded that the 9 km2 area in Holyhead Deep is suitable for future deployment of up to 80MW installed capacity of Deep Green power plants, Minesto informed.
Following the planned installation of the first 500kW commercial-scale demonstrator this year, backed with EU funds through the Welsh government, Minesto intends to develop the Holyhead Deep site in three phases as part of a deploy-and-monitor approach.