French tidal energy company bags €2.5M investment

French company Sabella has collected €2.5 million through bond issue to help support its tidal energy business and activities.

The investment campaign, run on GwenneG platform, proved a success for Sabella which issued bonds at pay rate of 8.5%, and minimum investment ticket set at €1000.

The aim of the investment campaign was to collect funds that will be used to support a number of industrial and research and development projects Sabella is involved in.

According to the information on GwenneG platform, part of the funding will be used for EU-backed TIGER and PHARES projects.

As part of the PHARES project, Sabella and its partner AKUO Energy plan to develop a tidal energy farm offshore the Ushant Island that would feature two Sabella’s tidal turbines, each rated at 500kW.

The project will see the construction and implementation of a hybrid insular energy model combining three different sources of renewable energy.

Aside from tidal energy, the scheme will see the installation of one wind turbine and solar power farm, backed with an energy storage system developed by EDF SEI.

As for the TIGER project, Sabella plans to deploy two 250kW D8 turbines at the site in the Gulf of Morbihan in France.

The project, developed by UK and French partners, aims to accelerate the growth of tidal stream energy by installing up to 8MW of new tidal capacity at sites in and around the English Channel region.

In that regard, Sabella is building its assembly facility in the Port of Brest, which represents a strategic site for the company as plans to use it for assembly and testing of its tidal energy turbines before installation at sea.

The investment is also expected to accelerate the company’s commercialization strategy, and bring the business closer to commercial maturity.

To remind, Sabella’s recently installed D10 turbine off Ushant Island, has just started exporting clean power the island’s electricity grid.

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