Naval Energies and EDF Group have decided to bring the Paimpol-Bréhat tidal energy array demonstration project to a close.
Namely, the companies will not be reinstalling OpenHydro tidal turbines at the Paimpol-Bréhat site off Brittany, as they have completed the lesson learning from construction, deployment and testing of the turbines as part of the project, according to Naval Energies.
The information gathered from the demo array project will be used for other tidal energy developments, mainly Cape Sharp Tidal’s Bay of Fundy tidal array project, Naval Energies said.
“The feedback form the Paimpol-Bréhat project will be used to inform and benefit the Cape Sharp Tidal demonstration project in the Bay of Fundy (Canada) demonstration project, led by Naval Energies.
“These two demonstration projects, Paimpol-Bréhat and Cape Sharp Tidal, although deployed within very different receiving environments, have yielded important data which allow us to optimize the design, reliability and performance of OpenHydro’s tidal turbines,” Naval Energies said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Naval Energies retrieved the second 500kW OpenHydro turbine that was deployed at the 1MW Paimpol-Bréhat tidal array. Both turbines are currently in Cherbourg where they were shipped for maintenance works.
Naval Energies noted it is continuing with the development of 14MW Normandie Hydro tidal farm in Raz Blanchard, off France, together with EDF Group.
“It is intended that, once sufficient data has been recovered from the Cape Sharp Tidal project, EDF will be able to launch the industrial phase of the Normandie Hydro project,” added Naval Energies.