UK: SeaRoc, McLaughlin & Harvey Partner Up to Support Tidal and Wave Energy Projects

International marine engineering companies SeaRoc and McLaughlin & Harvey have today announced a partnership to provide construction, installation and operation & maintenance services to tidal and wave energy developments.

The companies have highly complementary competencies and capabilities and over the past 8 years they have each gained significant experience of designing and building tidal and wave energy projects. Working together, the two companies will use their combined experience to deliver an enhanced suite of services. They will provide the specialist solutions needed to meet the many and varied project demands which this rapidly maturing industry requires.

Following its acquisition by Fred. Olsen Ltd. in 2010, SeaRoc has, in less than a decade, expanded its offering to include an all-encompassing offshore contracting capability, while still providing industry-focussed consultancy services. The team harbours a wealth of experience in offshore and marine construction activities from across the sector; including renewable energy, oil and gas, dredging, cable and pipe lay operations.

This comprehensive industry knowledge brings the skills and capabilities needed for SeaRoc to deliver the construction projects with which the company now engages. SeaRoc has had, and continues to provide, a technical input into over 90% of UK offshore wind farm construction projects, as well as many of the leading tidal and wave energy developments to date.

Building on its unrivalled track record of installing foundations for tidal energy devices, McLaughlin & Harvey is currently completing the first phase of a project to develop a commercially viable and cost effective foundation installation technique for tidal and wave energy convertors. The system has the potential to revolutionise the industry. Based on proven technologies it is suitable for most marine energy convertors and can be installed in a variety of geotechnical and bathymetric seabed conditions.

McLaughlin & Harvey are investigating options to take this R&D project to the next phase so that, as the sector reaches commercial scale, they can provide a fully tooled and proven solution to overcome the installation challenges facing the tidal and wave energy industries. SeaRoc’s contribution also provides significant advantages to this McLaughlin and Harvey’s project through its experience of vessel operations.

The collaboration between McLaughlin & Harvey and SeaRoc establishes an unrivalled combined portfolio of successful marine renewable energy installations and deployments, coupled with over a century of civil, marine and offshore engineering. This makes the partnership one of the most experienced in the industry to date.

Adam Holland, Marine Renewables Manager for McLaughlin & Harvey, noted: “The execution of this Collaboration Agreement shows our continued commitment to developing practicable and cost effective projects using innovative new technologies, with the aim of bringing the tidal and wave energy industry in achieving commercial reality. We believe that SeaRoc’s excellent track record in a diverse range of offshore installations together with the added value of its consultancy wing, has the potential to even augment our rapidly growing capabilities, providing us with the capacity to deliver larger and more technically challenging projects, now and in the future.”

Eric Briar, Managing Director of SeaRoc, welcomed the partnership, commenting: “This collaboration offers huge potential for delivering construction and O&M projects to the renewables industry. With McLaughlin & Harvey’s long history of civil and marine engineering, and through their experience of successfully deployed tidal energy installations since 2006, they have consistently shown innovation in their chosen deployment methodologies. With SeaRoc’s decade of offshore renewable energy project support and track record of marine energy installations, using our capabilities in vessel management and offshore operations, we can combine with McLaughlin & Harvey’s novel approaches to provide a very significant offering to the industry. We see an immediate opportunity to join forces on the installation of tidal and wave projects, where developers are facing real challenges that we can help them to overcome. Building on the success of our contracting arm for the offshore wind industry, we can apply some very real and extensive project experience to issues facing this rapidly maturing market.” 

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Press release, May 10, 2013; Image: SeaRoc