One of the key developments of the marine energy industry in the UK is the demonstration of near commercial scale devices in real sea conditions and the collection of performance and environmental data to inform permitting and licensing processes. The ETI’s ReDAPT (Reliable Data Acquisition Platform for Tidal) project saw an innovative 1MW buoyant tidal generator installed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney in January 2013. The project demonstrated the performance of the tidal generator in different operational conditions, aiming to increase public and industry confidence in tidal turbine technologies by providing a wide range of environmental impact and performance information, as well as demonstrating a new, reliable turbine design
This document provides a high level summary of the first years operation of the Alstom 1MW tidal turbine. The documentincludes details of an initial power curve of the turbine that shows good correlation between actual results against expected performance. The load factor has been calculated using actual flow data and shown to be 34.2% for the EMEC site. An overview of the breakdown of CAPEX and a summary of environmental impacts has been provided