Marine energy developer Minesto has completed the first offshore installation phase of its tidal power project in the Faroe Islands.
The company said the gravity-based foundation for the powerplant has been installed at the site in Vestmannasund.
The foundation, which was designed and fabricated by Leask Marine in Orkney in Scotland, consists of a base frame and a number of doughnut-shaped ballast weights.
Each component has been individually lowered to the seabed using the Leask multicat vessel C-Fenna, Minesto said.
It added that the foundation will provide the connection point for Minesto’s DG100 tidal kite system.
The bottom joint of the kite system, once linked to the foundation, provides a pivoting connection point for the tether, allowing the kite to operate freely in its automatically controlled figure-of-eight trajectory, the company said.
The next installation phase will involve the sub-sea export cable that distributes electricity generated by the powerplant to the electric grid operated by Minesto’s partner SEV.
Minesto chief operating officer David Collier (pictured) said: “We are very pleased to have the first sub-sea hardware in place.
“The operations team has managed to safely progress the offshore installation campaign, adapting the plan to overcome both unfavourable weather conditions and logistical challenges related to the ongoing pandemic.
“The gravity-based structure developed for the Vestmannasund project has a new cost-effective modular design, which among other things means that we can use smaller vessels for transportation and installation.”