This image shows the 2 megawatt Orbital Marine Power turbine, the Orbital O2.
The Scottish engineering company Orbital Marine Power will lead a consortium focused on the commercial deployment of floating tidal energy.
In a statement Monday, the company, which has previously described its 2-megawatt O2 tidal turbine as the “most powerful in the world,” said the 26.7 million-euro Forward-2030 project (31.5 million) dollars) would receive a grant of € 20.5 million from the Union’s Horizon 2020 Program.
Although the UK officially left the European Union on 31 January 2020, its companies and researchers can still access Horizon 2020 funding.
In a statement, Orbital said the project would work on developing a system that would combine “floating tidal energy, wind generation, grid export, battery storage and green hydrogen production.” The company will assume the role of project coordinator and lead technology developer.
Breaking things down, the next iteration of Orbital’s floating tidal turbine will be installed at the European Marine Energy Center in Orkney, an archipelago north of mainland Scotland.
There, the turbine will be integrated with battery storage and a hydrogen production facility. The new turbine will sit next to the already installed O2, which began generating grid-connected power earlier this year.
Other participants in the project include the University of Edinburgh, which will be responsible for what Orbital described as a “techno-economic analysis of tidal energy”.
Elsewhere, Engie Laborelec, part of Tractebel, a subsidiary of the major French company Engie, “will evaluate the large-scale integration of tidal energy into the European energy system, will develop an intelligent management system of energy and an operational prediction tool “.
Matthijs Soede, who is in charge of the policy of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, said that the Forward-2030 project had “the potential to accelerate the commercial deployment of tidal energy, all consolidating Europe’s position as a leader in tidal energy ”. “
Monday’s news represents the latest shot in the arm for the UK’s marine energy sector. Last week, another Scottish company, Nova Innovation, announced it would receive £ 6.4 million ($ 8.89 million) from the National Investment Bank of Scotland.
The investment, according to Nova, will be used to fund the manufacture and distribution of its submarine tidal turbines. The money would also be used to fund ongoing R&D on marine energy, he said.
Although interest in marine energy systems appears to be growing, the current footprint of the industry and its technologies remains scarce.
Ocean Energy Europe figures show that only 260 kilowatts of tidal current capacity were added to Europe last year, while only 200 kW of wave energy were installed.
By contrast, 14.7 gigawatts of wind energy capacity was installed in Europe in 2020, according to the industrial body WindEurope.