Scottish tidal company Sustainable Marine have announced this week that its new tidal turbine rotors can last for up to two decades. The announcement follows a series of tests undertaken at a marine energy centre at the National University of Ireland in Galway – which houses the largest lab of its kind in Ireland.
The energy firm has partnered with the MaREI Centre at the school, as well as German engineering partner SCHOTTEL Hydro in the creation and testing of its ‘ultra-durable’ turbine rotors. The new tech is being developed as part of the wider Marinet2 project, a Horizon 2020 program looking to identify and test offshore renewable energy technologies.
The rotors – which come in two sizes of 6.3, and 4m- were tested at the Irish facility to simulate 20 years worth of wear and tear, examining how the rotors responded to variations in stress and vibration.
“This international collaboration, through our German engineering partner SCHOTTEL Hydro, provides a firm indication of our ambitions to continue raising the bar and advance the field of tidal turbine technology,” said Ralf Starzmann, Vice President of Business Development at Sustainable Marine in a press release. “In order to push the boundaries, it is essential that we challenge our solutions at leading facilities that can push the limits of our technology,”
“Accelerated lifetime testing is an essential process which allows us to rapidly speed up normal conditions, to better understand how structures will react over time,” he added. “Our new 4m rotor blade has proven to be ‘ultra-durable’, providing full confidence in the design and structural integrity. Reliability is a key factor in tidal turbine development, particularly as we are now moving towards our first commercial projects.”
The company is in the process of developing the world’s first floating tidal energy array, located in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. Their rotors are made from carbon-fibre, and the firm says the materials’ ‘passive-adaptive’ quality reduces structural loads on the turbines, allowing for more cost-effective components to be used.
