Nova Innovation has been awarded a €14.9m grant from European Commission’s Horizon 2020 R&D programme to extend its Shetland tidal array to six turbines.
The Edinburgh developer currently operates three of its 100kW M100 turbines in the Bluemull Sound.The funding award was first reported exclusively in subscriber-only newsletter reNEWS.
The project codenamed ‘Enabling Future Arrays in Tidal’ (EnFAIT) is due to run until July 2022.Other partners in the project, which has a total cost of €20.2m, include SKF, Elsa, the University of Edinburgh, Wood Group, Mojo Maritime, RSK Environnement, HMK Technical Services and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult.
Nova chief executive Simon Forrest said: “The project will make a major contribution to reducing the lifetime costs of tidal energy, and will boost investor confidence by providing hard-edged analytics of commercial and operational performance to inform investment decisions.”
“Being able to provide evidence of our technology delivered and working in real grid-connected conditions was crucial to our winning the EnFAIT project.”
Ocean Energy Europe chief executive Rémi Gruet added: “EnFAIT is an important pathfinder project and will help strengthen Europe’s global technology leadership in tidal energy.”
The knowledge, experience and expertise gained from projects like this will pave the way for a new industrial manufacturing sector with a supply chain based firmly in Europe”.
Image: M100 tidal turbine (Nova Innovation)
