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A project, which is described as the world’s largest tidal stream energy development, has put subsea activities on the agenda for December 2025 in Scotland’s Pentland Firth.
Based on the information contained within the latest notice to mariners, subsea works are to be conducted at the MeyGen Tidal Array site between December 10th to 17th, 2025. These operations will entail turbine recovery, subsea cable works, and deployments in Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth, between the Scottish mainland and the island of Stroma.
Solstad’s Normand Vision offshore construction vessel will be involved in these activities. Operational since 2016, the MeyGen tidal stream energy project is owned by SAE Renewables (SAE) , previously known as SIMEC Atlantis Energy, a developer of sustainable development projects.
This project secured an agreement for lease for the Inner Sound tidal development site in October 2010 from The Crown Estate for 398 MW of installed tidal stream energy capacity to be consented in a phased approach.
Phase 1 is an operational 6 MW demonstration array, covering four 1.5 MW turbines installed as part of MeyGen’s deploy and monitor strategy, which entered into the 25-year operational phase in April 2018.
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All the turbines are upstream, three-bladed, horizontal-axis machines, fully submerged and mounted on gravity-base foundations resting on the seabed. There is also Project Stroma, comprising a subsea hub installed in September 2020 to allow multiple turbines to be connected to a single power export cable.
Phase 2 has been awarded a total of 59 MW with a target commissioning date of 2027, 2028, and 2029, respectively. SAE set its cap on exploring the opportunity to collocate the tidal stream project alongside storage solutions, based upon prior experience at Uskmouth Energy Park. This is called the Meygen Sustainable Energy Park.
After achieving the first contractual milestone in Phase 2 in July 2022 for the delivery of an additional 28 MW of tidal power capacity for the project, SAE deployed in October 2022 an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP), a tidal flow measurement device, at the MeyGen site.
The final turbine of the four turbines for Phase 1 was deployed in December 2024, making the site fully operational and delivering 6 MW of power . SKF’s technology recently delivered a new operational milestone, with uninterrupted performance at the site for over six years.