French developer of hydrokinetic technology for both river and ocean application, HydroQuest, will launch the testing of its first two tidal turbines at the SEENEOH site on March 1, when SEENEOH will also inaugurate its tidal test site located on the Garonne river in Bordeaux, France.
SEENEOH announced HydroQuest as the first company to test its tidal technology at the site in June 2017, when the French tidal test centre said the tidal technology developer will test four bi-directional turbines with the capacity of 80kW on a 50-tonne floating testing barge named Bilbao.
The testing of HydroQuest’s system will last for 12 months.
The company was selected by the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) in February 2017 to develop a 2MW in-river tidal energy project featuring 39 of its river turbines on the river Rhône in the eastern France.
A few months earlier, in Q4 of 2016, ADEME chose HydroQuest and Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie (CMN) to jointly install a 1MW ocean hydrokinetic tidal turbine off Brittany, France.
The SEENEOH test site became fully operationa l in March 2017, when the final testing berth was connected to the grid. The site features three testing berths designed to trial tidal devices with either mounted or floating fixation type, along with the 250kW connection to the onshore substation.
The test centre’s second user is DesignPro , an Irish company that is scheduled to put its 25kW hydrokinetic turbine for trial in April 2018.