EUROpean Tidal energy pilot farm focused on Industrial Design, Environmental mitigation and Sustainability

Project Information

EURO-TIDES

Grant agreement ID: 101136085

DOI

10.3030/101136085

EC signature date 21 November 2023

Start date 1 December 2023

End date 30 November 2029

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 3 653 620,00

EU contribution

€ 3 192 720,63

Coordinated by

ASSOCIATION EUROPEENNE DE L'ENERGIE DE L'OCEAN
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EURO-TIDES (EUROpean Tidal energy pilot farm focused on Industrial Design, Environmental mitigation and Sustainability)

Reporting period: 2023-12-01 to 2025-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

There is 10GW1 of predictable, high-value tidal stream energy potential in European waters, with up to 100GW of capacity globally2. This is an almost entirely unharnessed clean energy resource, with just 13MW currently deployed3. Transitioning European market leading technologies from single deployments, up to farm scale, is the next milestone in harnessing this clean, predictable, secure, domestic energy resource. EURO-TIDES has been developed specifically to address the call topic by delivering a 9.6MW farm of four 2.4MW Orbital tidal energy devices of the same series. The farm will run in full operational conditions for 15 years, deploying in 2027. The EURO-TIDES consortium will work collaboratively to deliver six ambitious objectives and drive the sector forwards:
1. De-risking tidal energy technology development by delivering a 9.6MW pilot farm and three pilot farm system innovations; reducing Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of Orbital’s floating tidal technology from €120/MWh to <€100/MWh.
2. Increase bankability and insurability by providing 17,520 hours of operational data, displaying the production of 50GWh+, and verification of key technology metrics to internationally recognised methodologies: reducing cost of capital from 10%-12% to 5%-6%.
3. Increase availability of tidal stream technology by creating an effective, robust, replicable, and reliable operations and maintenance programme: increasing availability to 95%+.
4. Improve market confidence by developing industrial design and manufacturing processes: increasing supply chain capacity from one device per annum to 80 devices per annum.
5. Increase knowledge of environmental impacts to ensure appropriate environmental protection and mitigation is in place: enabling safe scalability to a 100GW+ global market.
6. Making performance, reliability and behavior data collected from the demonstration pilot farm publicly available: accelerating scalability, commercialisation, and deployment of a 2GW+ project pipeline.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project is current in the design and development phase. In the past 18 months, considerable progress have been made in the design of innovative tidal farm architecture for floating tidal arrays. This have included innovation 33 kV electrical infrastructure design, farm level drilled anchors design and installation methodologies.

Progress have been made in identifying floating tidal turbine manufacturing process improvement opportunities to reduce costs in line with project targets.

Activities have been progressed in this period toward preparation for onshore testing at CWD’s facilities to address component reliability and derisking to support the increase in availability levels to 95% targeted in the project.

A third-party Technology Appraisal process that has been completed in this period, the outcome of which was a Technology Qualification Plan to define qualification activities that will now be progressed to address technology risks and unknowns such that they are completed by the end of the project.

The development of a farm level integrated environmental monitoring system (F-IEMS) has progressed.

In parallel, there have been excellent progress in advancing the targeted 2 GW+ project pipeline for floating tidal energy.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project is in the initial design and development phase, but the following results and potential impacts are targeted:

De-risking tidal energy technology development and increased bankability and insurability to enable development of 2GW+ of tidal stream by 2030 towards a sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply.

Advancing European technology leadership will increase availability and improve market confidence in the technology for European suppliers, tidal technology components and services providers, developing a
100GW/€500bn international market.

Advancing a climate neutral energy supply with 100GW+ global potential through increasing knowledge of environmental impacts of tidal energy, collecting 17,250 hours of operational data and making it publicly available

Delivering 10GW of disruptive renewable energy source to support open strategic autonomy and a diverse technology portfolio, whilst reducing supply–demand balancing by 25%19 in the transition to a net zero energy system.

Delivering Affordable energy to address Societal Needs and Preferences, whilst reducing required total land/sea space by 33%.

Creation of over 32,000 FTE years in a leading European clean energy supply chain.

Improving technology environmental sustainability by offsetting 24,650,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Orbital's O2 blade was displayed at the OEE24 exhibition.

EURO-TIDES was presented during the tidal showcase session at the OEE2024 conference.