Release Date: 22 April, 2020
Orbital Marine Power Ltd (Orbital), the world’s leading developer of floating tidal stream turbines, has appointed Oliver Wragg as their Commercial Director.
Before joining Orbital Oliver was the Commercial Director at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd for over six years where he oversaw significant growth in activities supporting and delivering a multitude of industry initiatives and flagship projects. Oliver has been an active board member of Ocean Energy Europe since 2010 and in 2012 was awarded the Lennard Senior Prize for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the field of marine energy.
Commenting on the appointment Orbital CEO, Andrew Scott, said: “Oliver joining the team at Orbital is a huge boost for our commercial ambitions. He comes with an unrivalled marine energy network that stretches around the world and I’m certain he will play a pivotal role in building a valuable pipeline of projects for us to grow into in the years to come.”
“I am extremely excited about joining Orbital to help drive tidal energy towards commercialisation,” Oliver says. “As we move forward into a world where a transition to net zero is being legislated for and we are seeing a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels, the time has now come to unlock the prize that is affordable and reliable net zero electricity from the power of the tides. I truly believe that Orbital has the right technological solution to succeed and is on the cusp of achieving a step change in tidal energy commercialisation.”
Oliver will join Orbital Marine Power in April 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.
