Nova Innovation has been awarded a €4.4m grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 R&D programme to develop a direct drive power take-off (PTO) for tidal turbines.
The TiPA (Tidal turbine Power take-off Accelerator) project will run for 36 months.
It will build the PTO subsystem and conduct accelerated onshore testing in Germany followed by in-sea testing in Scotland with third party validation of the design and the test results.
The project consortium also includes: Siemens, SKF, the University of Edinburgh, RWTH Aachen University, Delft Technical University, Wood Group Kenny and SgurrEnergy.
The Edinburgh developer said the technology will reduce the lifetime cost of tidal power by 20% when commercialised.
Nova Innovation director Simon Forrest said: “This will be a major step forwards for the global sector and significantly drive down the lifetime cost of tidal energy.”
Image: M100 tidal turbine (Nova Innovation)
