The world’s most powerful turbine weighing almost 680 metric tons has started its power generating operations and export power to the grid. This turbine is located at the European Marine Energy Centre of Orkney which is a group of islands located near Scotland.
The European Marine Energy Centre of Orkney is a UKAS accredited test and research center focusing on the wave and tidal power development. The Centre provides developers with the opportunity to test full-scale grid-connected prototype devices in unrivaled wave and tidal conditions. It plays a key role in proving to the world the value of wave and tidal power as a sustainable source.
This is big news and this is a major opportunity for the UK to grow its budding tidal-marine energy sector.
The news of the turbine was first given on Wednesday by a Scottish firm called the Orbital Marine Power and they explained extensively how the turbine has been suspended into the high-tidal energy environment of the Fall of Warness and a power transmission cable is attached to this turbine underwater which is directly connected to a local electricity yard.
The Fall of Warness is a tidal stream turbine test site and has the capacity to deploy up to eight devices.
The turbine is quite powerful with a 2-megawatt O2 turbine with twin 20-meter (65.6-ft) rotors sweeping more than 600 square meters (6,460 sq ft) of the area below the surface, on the end of 18-meter-long (60-ft) articulating arms. The platform is quite long, approximately 243 ft long, and has the capacity to generate electricity that is clean and productive. The turbine has the capacity to provide electricity to 2,000 UK homes and offset approximately 2,200 tonnes of CO2 production per year.
This turbine is expected to function and work in the Fall of Warness for the next 15 years and generate power for the UK residents and big companies.
The turbine has already been scheduled to supply power to a land-based electrolyzer which uses electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. These electrolyzers will produce green hydrogen which can be used for hydrogen fuel cells.
Andrew Scott who is the CEO of Orbital Marine Power said on Wednesday that this will be a major milestone for the O2. This company is always involved in the development of low-cost, predictable, scalable floating tidal energy production turbines and systems.
The 2-megawatt O2 turbine is developed and built by Orbital Marine Power. So instead of fitting the entire system underwater they have suspended chains connecting the turbine and have fitted the chains under the water this makes the process cost-effective and quite simple and quick.
This O2 turbine construction costs came completely from funds like the public lenders through the Abundance Investment. It was also funded by the Scottish government who gave a total of £3.4 million from their Saltire Tidal Energy Challenge Fund.
Michael Matheson who is the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary said once that Scotland is ideally placed in the area just to harness the incredible marine energy and to spread it worldwide. He has been the Secretary for net-zero, energy, and transport of his country.
