At the Scottish Green Energy awards in Edinburgh last night (Dec 6th), Orbital Marine Power’s pioneering SR2000 tidal turbine scooped the Best Innovation Award after generating more power in one year than had been produced by Scotland’s entire wave and tidal energy sector in the 12 years prior to its launch.
Andrew Scott, Orbital Marine Power’s CEO said:
“It’s fantastic news that the judging panel selected us to win this prestigious award from a very high quality shortlist. It’s great recognition for the Orbital Marine team which has worked so hard over the years to deliver a new, truly innovative renewable energy technology. Coming at the end of what has been a very successful year for the company, this award is a tremendous confidence boost for the team, as we look forward to starting work next year on the construction of the O2, our next generation commercial production tidal turbine, scheduled for deployment at EMEC in 2020.”
Orbital Marine Power Ltd is an innovative Scottish engineering company focused on the development of a tidal energy turbine technology capable of producing a dramatic reduction in the cost of energy from tidal currents. The Orbital technology has been under continuous engineering development, including rigorous testing of scaled systems in both tank conditions and open ocean environments since the company was founded in 2002. The company currently employs 32 staff with offices in Orkney and Edinburgh.
Orbital was the first company in the world to successfully grid connect a floating tidal turbine in 2011. In 2016 the company launched the SR2000, the world’s most powerful tidal stream turbine. The SR2000 produced in excess of 3GWh of electricity over its initial 12-month continuous test programme. At the time this represented more power from a single turbine than had been generated cumulatively by the wave and tidal sector in Scotland over the 12 years prior to the launch of the SR2000.
In October 2018 Orbital opened a £7m crowd funding debenture on the London-based Abundance Investment platform to support the build of the O2 turbine with the target being met inside 10 weeks. The Orbital O2 will comprise of a 72m long floating superstructure, supporting two 1 MW turbines at either side for a nameplate power output of 2MW, at a tidal current speed of 2.5 m/s. With rotor diameters of 20m, it will have a 600sq metre rotor area, the largest ever on a single tidal generating platform to date.
The O2 project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the FloTEC project (grant agreement No. 691916) and the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg North West Europe Programme under the ITEG project.
This project has also received support under the framework of the OCEANERA-NET COFUND project, with funding provided by national / regional sources and co-funding by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme.
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