A consortium involving Queens University Belfast has won funding to develop a new marine turbine tidal energy system that can be deployed underwater, but raised to the surface easily for repairs.
Marine Current Turbines Ltd and its project partners Queen’s University Belfast, Mojo Maritime and Edinburgh University, have secured a grant of £250,000 from the Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council to develop a fully submerged (but easily surfaceable) SeaGen tidal turbine that can be deployed in deep water sites where there are large tidal ranges or significant wave environments.
The new design will mean that the workings are not exposed to heavy wave conditions at the surface, and will not require specialised craft to lift them off the sea bed for maintenance.
Marine Current Turbines are the operators of the Strangford Lough Turbine, the world's only commercial tidal energy turbine.
Their next-generation Seagen technology can be floated to the surface by remote in calm conditions when it needs maintenance.
Once operational, it will produce 2MW, nearly twice the energy generated by the current turbine in place at Strangford Lough.
MCT's website is HERE, and Lorna Siggins' Irish Times piece on the development is HERE.