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.
