Tidal firm unveils £5m turbine

Renewable energy firm Simec Atlantis Energy yesterday unveiled the world’s most powerful tidal turbine which could be deployed on future phases of its flagship generation project in the Pentland Firth.

The group has spent more than £5 million over two years developing the two megawatt (MW) system, which it said features the largest single axis turbine available on the commercial market.

Simec Atlantis, which has its commercial and project development teams based in Edinburgh and an operations base located at Nigg Energy Park in Invergordon, said the AR2000 system builds on the experience from the operation of turbines already in use on Meygen project in Scotland.

As well as being used on future phases of Meygen, the turbine will be available for sale to commercial developers by the end of 2019.

Drew Blaxland, Simec Atlantic’s director of turbine and engineering services, said: “The AR2000 marks the culmination of 15 years of investment, relentless experimentation, rigorous testing and subsea operation. Not only will it be the largest single rotor turbine in production, it will be the backbone of a highly efficient and cost-effective generation system capable of deployment in each of our key target markets in the UK, France, Channel Islands, Asia, Australia and Canada.”

Meygen is the world’s largest tidal stream array and has 392MW of further development capacity under its seabed lease. The project formally completed its construction and commissioning phase in March.

Last month Simec Atlantis said it expects to award the contract for the design for the £185m conversion of a coalfired power station in Wales within weeks. It has issued a tender for initial engineering and design work on the Uskmouth project in Wales and said the final contract decision is expected shortly.