Nova Innovation, Sabella join forces to progress tidal power in UK and France

Scottish tidal energy developer Nova Innovation and its French counterpart Sabella have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate development of their tidal energy sites in UK and France.

The collaboration will see the two companies combining expertise to drive rapid scale up of installed capacity in the tidal energy sector in both the UK and France.

The alliance will include co-operation across French and UK sites, driving down costs, catalysing opportunities for funding, and delivering economies of scale to tackle the climate emergency.

In November 2020, the European Commission published the European Offshore Strategy setting out the challenge of delivering marine energy capacity targets of 100MW by 2025, and 1GW by 2030.

The move spurred talks between Nova Innovation and Sabella on how to combine efforts to meet the targets, resulting in the signing of the MoU.

The companies will share information on site development, technical expertise, environmental data and their thriving networks to accelerate the time it takes to deploy projects and maximise cost efficiency of site development.

Fanch Le Bris, CEO of Sabella, said: “We welcome this MoU between Sabella and Nova Innovation, and we can already see significant benefits from our teams working together to build capacity for tidal energy across France and the UK and making tidal energy a commercial reality”.

Simon Forrest, CEO of Nova Innovation, added: “We are delighted to formalise our cooperation with Sabella on site development of projects in France and the UK. Following a similar evolution to the commercialisation of the wind sector, this MoU creates a pathway to accelerate delivery of larger, high-impact projects to take tidal energy mainstream”.

The move sends a strong positive signal to investors, the European Commission and stakeholders in the tidal energy sector, according to the companies.

Michael Matheson, cabinet secretary for net zero and energy in the Scottish Government, said: “I welcome this agreement between Nova and Sabella and I look forward to it delivering further opportunities for both companies – along with the wider sector – to grow, develop and realise the potential that tidal energy has in our journey to net-zero”.

This pan-European alliance is expected o maintain and strengthen the strong relationships across the European tidal energy supply chain, helping to continue the successful cost reduction pathway of this clean, predictable form of renewable energy.