SME to Build and Test New Generation Tidal Platform (UK)

Sustainable Marine Energy (SME) announced that it is to build and test a new generation systems integration platform aimed at enabling tidal energy to become a cost effective green source of energy.

The technology development company will be using its unique PLAT-O platform, together with STG 50 tidal turbines it is purchasing from propulsion experts SCHOTTEL GmbH, for trials off the Isle of Wight.

The trials will be used to develop and prove the ways SME’s new platform can drive down the costs and risks of device installation and maintenance, and help enable tidal energy to become genuinely viable.

At the same time the Isle of Wight based company will be developing its system to be easily scalable – from a small unit supplying power to an individual community up to utility scale deployments providing Megawatt (MW) capability.

Jason Hayman, Managing Director of SME, said: “This marks an important and exciting step forward for tidal energy, which we are totally committed to making work.

“At the moment the key barriers for tidal are the relatively high costs and risks of installing and maintaining devices, and the difficulties of placing them in the optimum position for maximum power extraction in deep water.

“The PLAT-O platform overcomes these barriers and our purchase of the STG 50 tidal turbines now enables us to get in the water with a 100kW community scale demonstrator to prove the benefits that can be delivered.

“We are delighted that the development of our community scale system is able to benefit from the expertise that SCHOTTEL has in producing reliable machinery for the challenging offshore environment.”

Gerhard Jensen, Chief Executive Officer of SCHOTTEL, added: “With more than 60 years of precision engineering experience in marine propulsion it is a natural and logical move for us to apply our knowledge to create a robust solution for the tidal energy sector.

“We share SME’s vision of an innovative, scalable and modular approach to tidal energy and we are delighted that SME has chosen our STG 50 intelligent power generation solution for its PLAT-O demonstrator.

“To sell tidal turbines at such an early stage of this industry makes us look forward to future projects.

“Successful prototype testing will provide us with an excellent opportunity to prove the commercial competitiveness of our turbines.”

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Press Release, May 23, 2013