Energy company with marine turbine experience in Ireland to apply for Pentland Firth site

Marine Current Turbines – which has already deployed a similar tidal energy system in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough, has confirmed its intention to apply to the Crown Estate for a lease on an area in the Pentland Firth. It wants to install 300 megawatts (MW) of capacity there by 2020.

Strangford Lough, on the east coast of Northern Ireland below Belfast Lough, has a fast tidal bore not unlike Argyll’s Sound of Islay. Experience in such waters will be very relevant to the Pentland First, as it would to the Sound of Islay, also slated as a tidal enegy generation site.

The Pentland Firth, between the Scottish mainland and Orkney, has 6 of the top 10 sites in the UK for tidal energy. Marine Current Turbines believes that its SeaGen marine turbines will be able to generate up to 300MW or more by 2020. The local grid may need upgrading to carry the power that developments in the Pentland Firth will create.

Marine Current Turbines’ Managing Director, Martin Wright, says: ‘Given our experience with our SeaGen tidal project in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough, we believe that we have a clear and substantial technical advantage as well as unique, practical experience of installing and running a commercial-scale tidal power system’.

He goes on to admit the challenges of an installation in the notoriously dangerous and moody Pentland Firth and to underline issues still to be addressed. These relate to the grid connection and to financing. For financing, read public subsidy.

Another Pentland Firth supplicant, Atlantis, has already been playing this tune, throwing in what it imagines is a winning sop to Prince Charles and Mey Selections by offering free recycled heat for their growing frames.

If we’re going to pay companies like this to come in and lead the way, let’s get a methodical system in place quickly, to ensure and manage the transfer of their skills and experience to a local team. Then, when they move on to new subsidies elsewhere – which, like all commercial carpetbaggers, they will – there will be a well-tuned and  usable legacy to return on public investment.

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