MeyGen secures £2.5m to get turbines back in the Pentland Firth
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The company behind the MeyGen project in the Pentland Firth has secured £2.5 million to get two of its turbines back in the sea within the next 12 months.
The Scottish Enterprise loan was confirmed by Simec Atlantis Energy's director of external affairs, Sean Parsons, and comes a week after tidal energy was included in the UK government's future energy strategy.
Mr Parsons said the company plans to redeploy the first turbine next month and the second in March 2023, fitted with a mechanism which will more than half the costs of future turbine recoveries and deployments.
The AR1500 1.5 megawatt turbine was successfully put back in the water last month while the fourth turbine in the demonstration array has stayed in the water at the site, which lies between the island of Stroma and the Caithness coast.
Mr Parsons said demonstrating the viability of the tidal turbines is vital to the success of MeyGen, which is the largest planned tidal stream project in the world. "When operational, the turbines have far exceeded expectations and this funding from Scottish Enterprise will support deployment and activity to ensure continuation of the project, " he said.
Company chief executive Graham Reid thanked Scottish Enterprise for its "continued support of the business and the MeyGen project".
"The successes and challenges we have faced on this project pave the way to establish a world-leading industry in Scotland and bring huge economic and environmental benefits for Scotland and the UK. Our focus now is in ensuring our turbines are returned to operation as quickly and safely as possible," he said.
Scottish Enterprise director of growth investments Kerry Sharp said: "Scotland is rightly known as a world leader in the marine sector and central to this is MeyGen. Scottish Enterprise has had a long-standing partnership with the project and we look forward to developing this further as we support the energy transition and deliver sustainable economic growth for all of Scotland’s communities."
On tidal being included in the UK government's energy strategy document, Mr Parsons said: "We welcome the government’s recognition of tidal in its energy strategy and especially its decision to establish a £20 million a year ring-fenced budget for tidal stream technology, available for 15 years under the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme."
The CfD scheme is the government’s primary method of encouraging investment in low-carbon electricity and has helped deliver substantial new investment and reductions in the costs of capital for some renewable technologies.
Mr Parsons said: "This investment signals the UK government’s confidence in the role tidal energy can play in delivering net zero carbon targets. It creates a clear route to market for UK tidal energy companies like Simec Atlantis Energy and its collaboration partner Nova Innovation that will create thousands of jobs across our coastal communities."
He added: "Tidal stream energy can deliver 100 per cent clean, 100 per cent predictable energy, without visual impact – complementing intermittent renewables like wind and solar power. A recent report by the Royal Society highlighted the UK is capable of delivering over 11 gigawatts of tidal stream energy by 2050, which is 50 per cent greater than current UK nuclear capacity."
The 3.5 kilometre MeyGen site, which covers some of the fastest flowing waters in the UK, was granted a lease by the Crown Estate in 2010 to develop the tidal energy project.
The first phase involved the deployment of four 1.5 megawatt turbines to demonstrate they are “commercially viable and technically feasible”. The turbines feed into the onshore power conversion building at the Ness of Quoys. The site has the capacity to produce up to 398 megawatts of electricity.
