Tocardo’s tidal power system arrived at Hatston Pier in Kirkwall on Monday 13th February in preparation for it being deployed at EMEC’s grid-connected tidal test site. It marks the start of Tocardo’s planned 20-year commercial demonstration project at EMEC’s Fall of Warness tidal test site. The company is preparing to roll-out its generic solution for tidal energy production, with the next installation expected in Canada at FORCE and Petit Passage.
Led by Tocardo, the InToTidal project brings together Orkney based companies EMEC and Leask Marine, and French research institute IFREMER. Tocardo has already been working with international shipyard DAMEN, as well as Leask Marine, Bryan J Rendall Electrical and Aquatera in Orkney for the system deployment at EMEC’s tidal site.
“Our work at EMEC is an important step in de-risking and improving Tocardo’s offshore tidal power technology” said Hans van Breugel, CEO of Tocardo Tidal Power. “Tocardo’s benchmark is to produce energy at the cost of offshore wind in the near future. To be able to achieve this, the tidal energy sector needs to be enabled to increase the installed volume of equipment. In that respect it is important to see a support scheme suitable for the marine energy sector, to encourage technology companies like Tocardo to build out on an industrial scale in the UK. A revenue based support mechanism, decreasing over time, has proved to be best in creating a new industry through market incentivisation, as learned from, as an example, the industry growth of the Danish wind energy sector.”
Mr van Breugel added that the company is ready to become one of the larger inward investment companies into the marine energy sector, with a strong operational and production base in Scotland and Wales and that the UK is extremely well positioned as a maritime nation to create new jobs from the growing tidal energy industry.
Image: The system arriving at Hatston Pier in Kirkwall in preparation for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre’s (EMEC’s) grid-connected tidal test site (Tocardo)
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