Minesto advances Faroe Islands project

Marine energy developer Minesto has completed the first offshore installation phase of its Faroe Islands project.

The company has set up the gravity-based foundation for the powerplant at the site in Vestmannasund.

David Collier, COO at Minesto, said:

“The operations team has managed to safely progress the offshore installation campaign, adapting the plan to overcome both unfavourable weather conditions and logistical challenges related to the ongoing pandemic.”

Orkney-based Leask Marine designed and also fabricated the gravity-based foundation.

It consists of a base frame and a number of doughnut-shaped ballast weights.

Each component has been individually lowered to the seabed using the Leask multicat vessel C-Fenna.

The foundation will provide the connection point for Minesto’s DG100 tidal kite system.

Specifically, when installed to the foundation, the kite system can operate freely in its automatically controlled figure-of-eight trajectory.

“The gravity-based structure developed for the Vestmannasund project has a new cost-effective modular design, which among other things means that we can use smaller vessels for transportation and installation”, said David Collier.

Finally, the next installation phase involves subsea export cable to the Faroe Islands electric grid operated by Minesto’s partner SEV.

Minesto, along with SEV, has secured all necessary permits and consents for the installation of two grid-connected tidal kite systems.

Minesto also secured public funding of €3.5 million through the EU’s EIC Accelerator and the Swedish Energy Agency for the implementation of the Vestmannasund project.