Sustainable Marine Energy (SME) has announced that its PLAT-O, the first tidal energy system to generate power off the south coast of England, demonstrated that the cost of tidal energy is rapidly coming down with such systems coming on stream.
Jason Hayman, Managing Director of SME , said: “It’s a huge achievement for the team. PLAT-O has been generating power consistently, reliably and, most importantly has behaved as we predicted it would. The mooring solution we have developed and employed is as steady as a rock.
“The installation operation went very smoothly and it absolutely goes to show that tidal energy devices can be installed in a low cost and efficient manner. Developing systems and deploying them in these strong tidal flows is a massive challenge but we have nailed it. The cost of tidal energy is coming down rapidly with systems like PLAT-O coming on stream.”
PLAT-O is a buoyant platform that is taut moored to the seabed using an anchoring solution that has also been developed by SME. It sits under the surface of the water and offers a number of other benefits including enhanced yield and survivability due to its position in the water column, which also ensures that surface vessels can pass safely overhead, SME said. Besides a surface marker buoy, the system is not visible on the surface.
The company PLAT-O is compatible with most leading tidal turbine technologies, and it can be adapted to suit a wide range of configurations.
Matt Slatter, Chairman of SME , said: “It has been a very busy and very exciting time for the team at SME. The completion of our testing programme in the Solent is a major milestone and the culmination of three years of hard work. PLAT-O has lived up to expectations and we are now focusing on the deployment of PLAT-O at the European Marine Energy Centre and the build of the second PLAT-O. With the support of Scottish Enterprise, we are building the team to deliver a farm of PLAT-O systems generating up to 1MW of power at EMEC by the end of 2016.”
PLAT-O was fitted with two SCHOTTEL HYDRO turbines and Leask Marine, an Orkney based company, provided the multi-cat, C-Salvor, along with deck crew and a dive team with extensive experience working in strong tidal environments for the marine operations.