The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult is part of a major new European tidal energy project along with a consortium of nine leading industrial, academic and research organisations, led by Scotland-based tidal energy leader Nova Innovation.
The Enabling Future Arrays in Tidal (EnFAIT) project builds on Nova’s existing operational tidal power station in Bluemull Sound off the Shetland Islands in Scotland, which was the world’s first grid-connected offshore array of tidal energy turbines.
The project, which begins in July 2017 and will run until June 2022, has been won as a competitive contract awarded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to develop marine energy sources and demonstrate technologies in European waters. The project is a flagship initiative for the EU and marine energy and aims to increase the commercial viability of tidal power.
It will extend the Bluemull Sound array to six turbines and demonstrate that high array reliability and availability can be achieved using best practice maintenance regimes. The layout of the turbines will be adjusted to enable array interactions and optimisation to be studied for the very first time at an operational tidal energy site.
Total project costs are expected to be €20.2 million, to which the EU Horizon 2020 Programme will be contributing €14.9 million.
Speaking of the EnFAIT project, Simon Forrest, Chief Executive Officer of Nova Innovation, said:
“Winning the EnFAIT project in this very competitive call represents a huge vote of confidence in the ability of Nova Innovation and its partners to deliver. The project will make a major contribution to reducing the lifetime costs of tidal energy, and will boost investor confidence by providing hard-edged analytics of commercial and operational performance to inform investment decisions.”
“Being able to provide evidence of our technology delivered and working in real grid-connected conditions was crucial to our winning the EnFAIT project. Our cost control and cost reduction planning were equally decisive. We are looking forward to achieving further world-class results, working with our consortium partners.”
Rémi Gruet, CEO of Ocean Energy Europe labelled the project an important pathfinder for the tidal energy industry in Europe:
“This announcement is a significant development and further proof that the tidal energy industry is now in take-off mode. The EnFAIT project is an important pathfinder project and will help strengthen Europe’s global technology leadership in tidal energy. The knowledge, experience and expertise gained from projects like this will pave the way for a new industrial manufacturing sector with a supply chain based firmly in Europe.”
Vicky Coy, ORE Catapult’s EnFAIT project manager, added:
“We are delighted to be part of this flagship European project and will bring our extensive engineering expertise to bear in helping to make huge advances in tidal energy development, and help lower the cost of this emerging technology.”
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About the Enabling Future Arrays in Tidal (EnFAIT) Project
The EnFAIT Project was awarded under call LCE-15-2016 ‘Scaling up in the ocean energy sector to arrays’, from the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (2013/743/EU) to develop marine energy sources and demonstrate technologies in European waters.
The EnFAIT Consortium
The consortium of nine partner companies includes the following organisations: