The company said the 1.5MW turbine designed by Lockheed Martin had successfully exported power to the grid and has operated at full power.
The turbine was deployed in less than 60 minutes after earlier connection of its wet mate connection management system, enabling for rapid deployment and retrieval of the tidal stream turbine.
Construction for the next 6MW phase of the MeyGen project is scheduled to start later this year.
The MeyGen project touted to be the world’s largest planned tidal energy project is being built in Pentland Firth to provide clean energy to about 175,000 Scottish homes.
In this regard, Atlantis is looking to deploy around 270 turbines to produce 400MW of energy.
Lockheed Martin Energy vice president Frank Armijo said that tidal turbines in order to withstand and operate the tough conditions of a sea floor need to be highly reliable and resilient.
Armijo added: "These design requirements are similar to the reliability and durability needs of many of our aerospace programs.
“With innovations in advanced manufacturing and materials, and experiences gained in the design and production of undersea systems, space projects and aeronautics, we're now helping to make tidal energy more reliable and effective."
Apart from designing the AR1500 turbine, the US based Lockheed Martin has also developed, manufactured and delivered the Yaw Drive System (YDS) and the Variable Pitch System (VPS) to the project.
The two subsystems allow the turbine to rotate independently around its base to face the tidal flow at all times.
To optimize the energy generation in a given tidal stream, the pitch angle of the turbine blades has been made to adjust accordingly.
Image: Atlantis Resources has deployed the first AR1500 tidal energy turbine with new Lockheed Martin technology off the coast of Scotland. Photo: courtesy of PRNewswire/Lockheed Martin.
