Tidal power agreement for Pentland Firth site
On completion of the final phase, MeyGen expects to have installed up to 400 tidal turbines, which will be completely submerged.
MeyGen has entered into an ‘Agreement for Lease’ with the UK’s Crown Estate for the Pentland Firth Inner Sound tidal power site.
MeyGen is a joint venture between independent power generator International Power plc (45%), investment bank Morgan Stanley (45%), and tidal technology provider Atlantis Resources Corporation (10%), dedicated to developing the Inner Sound tidal site.
The award is the culmination of over two years of feasibility work conducted by consortium partners in the Pentland Firth and grants MeyGen an exclusive right to take forward the Inner Sound tidal development and take up a 25 year operational lease. The project, subject to obtaining all relevant statutory consents, is estimated to be able to generate up to 400MW, which is the equivalent electricity used by approximately 400,000 homes, purely from the energy generated from the tides.
Construction is planned to occur over a phased build out programme between the award of planning consent and 2020. The first step will be to deploy a limited turbine array to assess the environmental impact of the tidal turbines and inform the detailed planning for future phases. In addition to technology supplied by shareholder Atlantis, MeyGen has agreed to offer 10MW of capacity to TGL Rolls-Royce during this demonstration phase.
The project area is 3.3 sq/kmand located in a stretch of high flowing water between the Island of Stroma and the mainland of Caithness in Northern Scotland. On completion of the final phase, the company expects to have installed up to 400 tidal turbines which will be completely submerged, such as the ones recently installed at the European Marine Energy Centre by Atlantis.
The Inner Sound site is considered the ‘Crown Jewel’ of The Pentland Firth due to the quality of the tidal resource and its proximity to the mainland for grid connection points. MeyGen has committed to develop the project in close liaison with the Caithness community, making a priority of local stakeholder engagement, to support the growth of the marine power sector in the UK.
The Pentland Firth and water surrounding the Orkney Islands are the first areas to be made available for commercial scale development of wave and tidal energy in the United Kingdom. With potential generating capacity totalling 1,600MW, including the Inner Sound site, the wave and tidal projects announced under The Crown Estate Marine Energy Round 1 are the largest planned development of wave and tidal energy worldwide.
John Thurso, MP for Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross said, ‘Caithness and surrounding regions have a real opportunity to lead an international revolution in energy, by building a world beating marine power industry. We have the natural resource, we have the skills and we have the desire. This is no longer a dream,and I am thrilled that projects such as MeyGen will bring some of the biggest names in marine power, energy and finance to Caithness.’
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