Tocardo Tidal Power has started its planned 20-year commercial demonstration project at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, UK.
The Dutch-based tidal developer Tocardo has kicked-off the InToTidal project with the arrival of its tidal system in Orkney ahead of deployment at EMEC’s grid-connected tidal testing site.
Led by Tocardo, the project brings together Orkney-based companies EMEC and Leask Marine, and French research institute IFREMER.
It was backed by €2 million through European Commission’s funding program Horizon 2020 in June 2016.
Hans van Breugel , CEO of Tocardo Tidal Power, said: “Our work at EMEC is an important step in de-risking and improving Tocardo’s offshore tidal power technology. Tocardo’s benchmark is to produce energy at the cost of offshore wind in the near future. To be able to achieve this, the tidal energy sector needs to be enabled to increase the installed volume of equipment.
“In that respect it is important to see a support scheme suitable for the marine energy sector, to encourage technology companies like Tocardo to build out on an industrial scale in the UK.”
Tocardo has already been working with international shipyard DAMEN, as well as Leask Marine, Bryan J Rendall Electrical and Aquatera in Orkney for the system deployment at EMEC’s tidal site.
With the installation at EMEC’s site, Tocardo is readying for large scale roll-out of its generic solution for tidal energy production. The next installation is foreseen in Canada at the FORCE and Petit Passage locations.
To remind, in February last year Tocardo signed an agreement with EMEC to install eight T2 tidal turbines across its two tidal systems at the Fall of Warness, off Eday.