Scotrenewables Tidal Power (STP) has set another record with its first 2MW floating tidal-stream turbine, which has produced over 3GWh of renewable electricity in its first year of testing at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney.
In 12 months of continuous operation, including some of the worst winter storms in recent years, the pioneering SR2000 — the world’s most powerful operating tidal stream turbine — has supplied enough energy to meet the annual electricity needs of around 830 UK households; at times, it has been supplying over 25% of the electricity demand of the Orkney Islands.
Underlining the significance of this achievement, the 3GWh generated by the SR2000 over the past
12 months is more power than was produced by the entire wave-energy and tidal-energy sectors in Scotland in the 12 years before the turbine’s launch.
The team at STP believes sees this as convincing evidence of the market-readiness of tidal power, along with Meygen’s generation of over 8GWh over the past year from four tidal turbines deployed in the Pentland Firth.
CEO Andrew Scott said: “The SR2000’s phenomenal performance has set a new benchmark for the tidal industry. Despite being an R&D project — and our first full-scale turbine — its first year of testing has delivered a performance level
approaching that of widely deployed mature renewable technologies.
“The ability to easily access the SR2000 for routine maintenance has been a significant factor in our ability to generate electricity at such levels over the past 12 months, including over winter.
“In addition, accessing the SR2000 using ‘RIBs’ and other similar low-cost vessels means that our operating costs and outage times are kept to a minimum.”
With support from the EU’s Horizon 2020 scheme, STP is planning to start building a 2MW commercial production unit later in the year. This will also go to Orkney for testing, before the company targets sales of the turbine.
Mr Scott added: “The SR2000 has completed the job of demonstrating that we have a breakthrough technology; we will now be shifting all our focus and resources towards building on that success, with a product that could lead to a new industry being created around a predictable source of renewable energy.”