The Scottish Government has awarded consent to MeyGen Ltd for an 86MW tidal energy project to be located in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth, off the north coast of Caithness. The location benefits from one of Europe’s greatest tidal resources and the project will be the largest of its kind in Europe being the first phase of a facility that could eventually generate up to 398MW of tidal energy.
The company won the consent following the statutory approval process with the regulator, Marine Scotland. It plans to build an initial demonstration array of up to 6 tidal turbines with construction scheduled to begin in early 2014 and the turbines commissioned in 2015. The array will provide valuable environmental data for subsequent phases and the wider tidal energy industry.
“The award of this consent is the culmination of over 4 years of environmental work and extensive consultation with stakeholders and the local community in Caithness” said Ed Rollings, Environment & Consents Manager of MeyGen. “The Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters region is an internationally important area for wildlife and we are committed to continuing research with interested parties to ensure that the exploitation of this clean, predictable and sustainable energy resource is done so in a manner that does not have a detrimental effect on the species and habitats in the area.”
When it is complete the tidal array should generate enough energy to power 42,000 homes, the equivalent of 40 percent of the homes in the Highlands. MeyGen is a Scottish-registered company and a joint venture between the investment bank Morgan Stanley, independent power generator International Power and tidal technology provider Atlantis Resources. It has agreed a 25-year lease from the Crown Estate for an area covering around 1.4 square miles (3.5 square kilometres) of fast-flowing water between the island of Stroma and the north easterly tip of the Scottish mainland.
The company’s AR1000 turbine is thought to be the world’s most powerful single-rotor device. Each turbine will stand 22.5 metres (73 ft) tall weighing 1,500 tonnes with a rotor diameter of 18 meters (59 ft).
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