Norway-based engineering firm Nortek has provided Signature500 current profiling instrumentation to OpenHydro for its tidal energy projects.
Tidal turbine manufacturer OpenHydro, a DCNS company, has opted for Nortek’s Signature instrumentation to gain better insights in the environment in which its tidal turbines operate.
Two 16-metre in diameter turbines have already been deployed on EDF’s Paimpol-Bréhat project in France, with two more being in the final stages of completion before deployment in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, later this summer.
OpenHydro intends to use the sampling and concurrent capabilities of the Signature500 to define current velocities, which will help validate and improve existing numerical models that will result in mitigating some of the risk and cost of deployment of tidal energy devices, according to Nortek.
Hamish Kerr , Oceanographic Engineer at Open Hydro, said: “The Nortek Signature500 is a superb measurement device which performs very well. The devices have been easily integrated into our system thanks to their usability and the data recorded so far has been of excellent quality.”
Nortek develops and manufactures acoustic Doppler current meters, current profilers and wave systems for use in the ocean, rivers, lakes and laboratories.