Hammerfest Strom and ScottishPower will jointly form the new tidal power company Hammerfest Strom UK. The new company will use and develop Hammerfest Strom’s existing devices to help Scotland deploy its considerable tidal power resources, the companies said.
In a press release, Statoil said that the partners will now work on the development of a full-scale tidal energy turbine, which will be installed in the UK in 2009. The demonstration of the full-scale prototype will be in preparation for deployment of the technology on a wide scale in Scotland and around the globe, ScottishPower added.
According to Statoil, the collaboration is an important first step on the road to commercialization and mass production of tidal power generation technology.
This is another milestone in our development of renewable marine energy, said Keith Anderson, managing director of ScottishPower’s renewables business. Collaboration between our two countries, Scotland and Norway, will help us to deploy our massive tidal power resources and reduce our emissions of CO2.
Hammerfest Strom and Statoil already have considerable experience in tidal technologies. In 2003, the companies installed a prototype tidal energy turbine in the Kval Sound near Hammerfest, northern Norway, which is the first in the world to supply power to the commercial power grid.
