The founders of Irish tidal developer OpenHydro are to form a consortium to try and save the troubled company from liquidation, after the courts granted it breathing space to find a way forward.

The Irish High Court appointed an interim examiner last month to Dublin-based OpenHydro Group and its subsidiary Open Hydro Technologies to assess any potential bidders; it also approved a request by Naval Energies — the French owner of OpenHydro — to appoint provisional liquidators.

OpenHydro’s chief operations officer, Brendan Corr, said: “The various technologies held in this company are very valuable, proven and able to be economically commercialised with a further reasonable level of investment.”