The Floating Tidal Energy Commercialisation (FloTEC) project will advance Scotrenewables’ existing 2MW floating tidal technology, the SR2000, with the development of a mark 2 turbine.
The SR2000-M2 prototype will be installed alongside the SR2000-M1 at the European Marine Energy Centre’s tidal test site at the Fall of Warness in Orkney.
The project will form a 4MW floating tidal array to serve as a demo for commercially viable tidal stream energy. It will optimize energy extraction for arrays in locally changing tidal resources.
Scotland Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said: "Scotrenewables has proven that collaboration is a vital component in overcoming the challenges facing successful tidal energy deployment – a view echoed by the members who have joined this impressive partnership.
"Scotrenewables has taken a significant step closer to demonstrating that extracting energy from our seas can be a commercially viable, cost competitive option for producing clean, green energy."
Scotrenewables Tidal Power, business development manager James Murray said: "The ambition of FloTEC is to drive down the cost of tidal energy through the delivery of a number of targeted innovations on an enhanced variant of Scotrenewables’ SR2000 floating tidal turbine."
The engineering work will feature advanced power conversion hardware, low cost manufacturing technologies, load reduction mooring parts and integrated energy storage.
