HydroQuest Ocean 1MW tidal turbine to hit the water in spring 2019

HydroQuest and its equity partner CMN (Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie) have informed that they will install and commission the HydroQuest Ocean 1MW tidal turbine at EDF’s Paimpol-Bréhat site in France in the spring of 2019. 

The tidal turbine is currently being assembled at CMN workshops in Cherbourg, France, and will be completed before the end of 2018. The installation at the Paimpol-Bréhat site, planned in agreement with EDF, is expected to start in April 2019, with the commissioning of the turbine scheduled for the spring of 2019 for an initial period of 12 months.

The demonstration project, selected by French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) through the government-funded ‘Marine renewable energies and pilot river turbine farms’ call for projects, aims to confirm the performance of the HydroQuest Ocean 1MW tidal turbine generator under real operating conditions, prior to commercialization.

“After this project, we would like to implement commercial farms at high-potential sites in France and elsewhere around the world. Our goal is to reduce costs over the medium-term to reach a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) well under 100 €/MWh, thus making tidal turbines an effective alternative supporting the energy transition,” Jean-François Simon, CEO of HydroQuest and Pierre Balmer, CEO of CMN said in a joint statement.

The two project partners added that, at the same time, they were awaiting the government’s launch of call for tenders for the first commercial tidal turbine arrays at Raz-Blanchard and Fromveur – the projects said to accelerate cost reductions across the industry.

HydroQuest is developing hydrokinetic technology for both river and ocean application. The company installed its first river tidal turbine at the SEENEOH test site in Bordeaux in January 2018 and launched the device at the inauguration of the test site in March.