The decision follows the findings of a study conducted by the Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) and a Call for Expressions of Interest (CEI) initiated in September 2013. The choice was made as part of the Programme des Investissements d’Avenir (Large Loan or Programme for Future Investments), a 35 billion loan provided by the French Government in 2010 for large infrastructure projects.
Four Oceade 18 1.4MW tidal turbines and an Alstom electrical subsea hub will be installed at the high potential site in Manche, a department of lower Normandy which includes the Cotentin Peninsular. The turbines will have a total capacity of 5.6MW and will be able to supply power to 5,000 people. The project is expected to commence in 2017 and to operate for a period of 20 years.
As mentioned in an earlier REM article, the Oceade 18 turbine has a rotor diameter of 18 metres and is equipped with three variable pitching blades and plug-and-play modules on rails. It is easy to tow to and from the operating site, something that helps to reduce costs by eliminating the need for specialist installation vessels.
“Thanks to this project, Alstom technology will be in a position to demonstrate its efficiency, its optimised costs and its maintainability, a necessary prerequisite to considering any future move towards a commercial phase on a larger scale” said Jacques Jamart, Alstom Senior Vice-President in charge of new energies.
The project will enable Alstom to test its Oceade 18 tidal turbine under installation and operational conditions similar to those in commercial facilities. A 500kW prototype has already been tested at EMEC in Orkney in 2011-12, producing 250MWh of electricity. This was subsequently replaced by a 1MW turbine in January 2013 which produced over 750MWh of electricity, amounting to a cumulative total in excess of 1 GWh from both prototypes. The Oceade turbines at Raz Blanchard will therefore benefit from feedback from two separate sources as well as any improvements resulting from them. The project represents a decisive step towards setting up commercial operations in tidal energy with a fully integrated team of 80 Alstom engineers being focussed on the development of the system in order to cut down on cost and to maximise the use of tidal resources according to local conditions.
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