Dubbed as SR2000, the 2MW tidal turbine developed and manufactured by the Scottish engineering company underwent grid connected commissioning works towards the end of last year. It was later re-connected in a low-costing operation lasting less than an hour to its subsea cable.

Scotrenewables Tidal Power is planning the commercial launch of SR2000 floating tidal turbine next year. The company’s commercialization project dubbed as FloTEC will carry out optimizations in design to bring down the costs of the turbine further.

Scotrenewables Tidal Power CEO Andrew Scott said: “We are tremendously excited to have the SR2000 demonstrating the performance and cost advantages of our floating tidal technology, in line with forecasts, whilst delivering new benchmarks within the tidal sector.

“This performance resets the bar for the costs of delivering tidal power. Achieving this industry milestone is a goal the team at Scotrenewables have worked tirelessly towards for a long time – the credit lies with them for these fantastic achievements.”

According to Scotrenewables, all offshore operations were executed with small-sized crew transfer vessels or locally available workboats. 

After its energisation, the floating tidal turbine of 500 tonne weight began energy generation and transmitted its power to the regional grid in Orkney.

The tidal turbine since then has been put under a phased testing programme resulting in full, 2MW rated export capacity which was achieved last week.

Some of the shareholders in Scotrenewables include DP Energy, Total and ABB Technology Ventures.

Total Renewables senior vice president Julien Pouget said: “For Total, contributing to the development of renewable energies is as much a strategic choice as an industrial responsibility.

“As a shareholder of Scotrenewables Tidal Power Limited we are proud to take part in a project that demonstrates how powerful utility scale tidal turbines can be deployed and maintained with low cost, locally based vessels towards a step-change cost reduction for the tidal energy sector”.

Scotrenewables’ 2MW SR2000 was launched in May last year and has been claimed to be the largest energy generating tidal turbine in the world.

Image: Scotrenewables’ floating tidal turbine reached its peak power. Photo: courtesy of Scotrenewables Tidal Power Ltd.