Cornwall-based Inyanga-Tech has completed concept and feasibility development of the HydroWing tidal energy project.
The concept and feasibility study was aimed at demonstrating that the technology is technically and commercially viable.
HydroWing is Inyanga-Tech’s patent-pending tidal energy technology which is based on a full-systems approach, targeted at subsea tidal energy arrays by addressing fundamental issues that have delayed the industrialization of the sector.
Richard Parkinson , managing director of Inyanga-Tech said: “ During this phase of the project our team have demonstrated that by reducing manufacturing costs and developing an integral launch and recovery system, massive reductions in OPEX and CAPEX can be achieved making the technology commercially viable at both community and commercial scale. ”
The Launch and Recovery System (LARS) allows for rapid response times to any maintenance requirements thereby increasing the availability of the turbines. At the heart of this is the 2-skid mounted passive heave compensated recovery davits and the recovery system which eliminates the need for offshore construction vessels, cranes and ROV’s.
The design of the turbine, powertrain and rotor has been contracted to Blackfish Engineering who have designed the ‘community scale’ power train-a 6x 65KW power train which includes a light-weight synchronous generator, multi-stage planetary gearbox and a 10m rotor diameter, optimized for rated flow speed of 1.7 m/s.
The technology can be scaled up for ‘commercial scale’ higher energy density sites- up to 2MW by integrating more turbines per HydroWing and larger power trains (4x250KW per wing).
The HydroWing project has received grant support from Marine-i. Part funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Marine-i is a partnership project aiming to boost the marine technology sector in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
Their funding has enabled the recruitment of two specialized research project engineers and the turbine development by Blackfish Engineering.
Inyanga-Tech has also received additional support from the Marine-i lead partner, University of Exeter, which has undertaken research looking at Operations, Maintenance, Reliability, site development and yield analysis.
Richard Parkinson added: “As the project has developed the Inyanga Team and our partners have become increasingly enthusiastic about the benefits of this modular design systems approach. We are now confident going into the manufacture of our first prototype over the next year. We are currently investigating several sites to test our first HydroWing. I am very appreciative and hugely encouraged by the support we have received from the Marine-i and the University of Exeter. It has really helped kickstart our project and set us on the road to success.”