Verdant Power’s tidal turbine array exceeds expectations

The three-turbine tidal energy array, installed by Verdant Power in New York City, has generated 100MWh of clean power in less than three months of continuous operation, marking a record for marine energy production in the United States.

The turbines, deployed on a single TriFrame mount at the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) project site in the East River, have performed at 100% availability, according to Verdant Power.

The deployment of Verdant Power’s turbine array took place on 22 October 2020, while the turbines started providing clean electricity seven days later to Roosevelt Island through a distributed generation connection to Con Edison’s New York City grid.  

The array has generated 100MWh in only 85 days of continuous operation – said to be a record for marine energy production in the United States – which is far sooner than projected.

According to Verdant Power, this means that the project is on track to generate more than 430MWh per year into the local grid.

Dean Corren, chief technology officer at Verdant Power, said: “The RITE project provides the metrics for system performance, and operational costs, which are scalable to other sites, and demonstrates a marine renewable energy project as distributed generation for alternative global market opportunities”.

​As the first U.S. licensed tidal power project site, the RITE project activity is a technology demonstration of the Verdant Power’s fifth-generation tidal power system and its novel TriFrame mounting system.

This pre-commercial demonstration of company’s proprietary integrated system is designed to optimize the economics of installation and maintenance over the system’s 20-year life, and to prove performance.

The RITE project is generating electricity under a pilot project license issued by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It will be the first marine renewable energy project in the world to be validated to international standards, according to Verdant Power.

To remind, the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) started collaborating with Verdant Power back in December 2020 on providing an independent power performance assessment for its fifth-generation tidal energy turbines.

The RITE project is supported by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the U.S. Department of Energy, in addition to New York private equity investors.