A new tidal turbine has connected to the European Marine Energy Centre (Emec) in the Orkney Islands, UK, where it will generate green hydrogen and provide electricity to the grid.

The Floating Tidal Energy Commercialisation project, led by Orbital Marine Power, will generate electricity from tidal movements over the next 15 years with the capacity to meet the annual electricity demand of around 2,000 UK homes.

The 74m floating turbine will also provide power to Emec’s onshore 0.5MW proton-exchange membrane electrolyser to generate green hydrogen to be used for local transport applications.

"Our vision is that this project is the trigger to the harnessing of tidal stream resources around the world" Scott, Orbital

“Our vision is that this project is the trigger to the harnessing of tidal stream resources around the world to play a role in tackling climate change whilst creating a new, low-carbon industrial sector,” says Andrew Scott, CEO of Orbital.

Orbital has been supported by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and also received funding from the European Regional Development Fund and the Scottish government.

Orbital now wants to further commercialise its technology through the deployment of multi-MW arrays.

Many hydrogen projects are looking at using offshore wind as the best commercialised renewable project to power electrolysers.

Less variable power

Although less developed than offshore wind, wave and tidal power have the potential to provide large amounts of less variable power generation in Scotland.

“Wave and tidal could play a role as the technologies are commercialised and scaled up—particularly in remote or island locations,” says the Scottish government’s Scottish Hydrogen Assessment, published at the end of last year.

“Green hydrogen could allow these areas to be energy independent,” it adds.

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Author: Tom Young