Two Andritz Hydro Hammerfest (AHH) 1.5MW turbines that are part of the MeyGen array had been serviced and returned to their offshore home, where they recommenced generation at full capacity, SIMEC Atlantis Energy informed on October 22.
According to the company, this represents world first handling and servicing of multiple turbines simultaneously on one vessel, as well as the retrieval, service and reinstallation of a turbine onboard a vessel without returning to a port. The offshore maintenance operations, carried out by Atlantis Operations UK, were completed wi thin 30 hours.
The developer stated that this achievement will have material cost reduction implications for future scheduled and unscheduled maintenance events.
Meanwhile, the Atlantis 1.5MW turbine has been retrieved for ancillary systems maintenance at the Atlantis operations base at Nigg Energy Park in Scotland. It will be returned to service during the December tidal window, when the third Andritz turbine will also be redeployed following completion of its inspection and maintenance programme.
As reported earlier, the MeyGen Phase 1A tidal energy array had been operating at half of its 6MW capacity since July 2018, after SIMEC Atlantis Energy retrieved two Andritz turbines due to a generator fault by the onboard monitoring systems.
The Phase 1A of the MeyGen project consist of three Andritz turbines and one Atlantis AR1500 machine, each with an output rated at 1.5MW.