The fourth and final tidal turbine has been installed as part of Phase 1a of the MeyGen tidal energy project, located in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth, Scotland.
The Atlantis AR1500 tidal stream turbine was successfully deployed in less than 60 minutes following earlier connection of its proprietary wet mate connection management system.
The turbine system was designed under contract by Lockheed Martin Corporation, tested and commissioned at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s facility in Blyth and finally loaded out from the project’s operations and maintenance base at Nigg Energy Park in Scotland.
The turbine and cable installation works were carried out by James Fisher Marine Services (previously Mojo Maritime) using Olympic Ares and followed the installation by GeoSea NV of the four foundation structures.
In November 2016, Atlantis announced that first power had been delivered to the grid from the first of the three Andritz Hydro Hammerfest tidal stream turbines. The MeyGen project has a total planned build of almost 400MW. Construction for the next 6MW phase is due to begin later this year.