Work Starts on World's Largest Tidal Array

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Tidal energy projects are scarce but work has just started off the northern coast of France on what will be the world's largest tidal array next year.

French energy giant Electricite de France (EPA:EDF) (Paris), has announced that the final tests prior to installation are being carried out on the first of four '16m' tidal turbines, designed by Irish marine technology company OpenHydro (Dublin, Ireland). The companies aim to deploy four devices, each with a generation capacity of more than 2 megawatts (MW), off the coast of Paimpol-Bréhat in the Brittany region. At the end of August, the first turbine assembled at the DCNS shipyard in Brest was towed from the harbour to commence a series of commissioning tests at sea prior to installation.

The assembly, which combines the turbine and the subsea base that will hold the turbine in place on the seabed, will be installed by the specialist installation barge, the 'OpenHydro Triskell'. The 22 metre tall turbine and subsea base, which weigh in at 850 tonnes, will be deployed on the seabed at a depth of 35 metres. Testing will take two months. The project will have a combined generating capacity in excess of 8 MW when it goes live in 2012 and supply enough power for approximately 4,000 homes.

"We are delighted to be working with EDF on what is set to be the world's first large-scale, grid-connected tidal energy farm and France's first offshore tidal installation," commented James Ives, chief executive of OpenHydro. "EDF's vision to develop this exciting project places France and EDF at the forefront of this new form of renewable energy generation"

EDF has been working on the Paimpol-Bréhat tidal farm project since 2004, which work finally starting in 2008. The project is expected to cost €40 million ($56.5 million).

OpenHydro is also involved in one of four huge tidal array projects awarded off the coast of Scotland last year. Working with SSE Renewables Holdings (UK) Limited, the partners secured a lease in Scotland's first marine energy leasing round to develop a 200 MW tidal array planned for Cantick Head, a three mile stretch along the south coast of South Walls. It lies within the Pentland Firth which is considered to be one of the world's largest single tidal sites. For additional information, see March 18, 2010, article - Scotland Awards 1.2 Gigawatts of Marine Energy Projects.

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