Tidetec gears up for tidal pilot with new team members

Norwegian company Tidetec has expanded its team to progress the technology commercialization process, and support the upcoming work on the pilot tidal energy project.

Ann-Christin Andersen has become the new member of the board, strengthening Tidetec’s commercial focus and sharing her large network, the company informed.

Ilias Zilakos, who has been working together with Tidetec on a consultant basis in the previous years, has been fully employed as Senior Engineer, while Alexander Kornilov took the role of a new System Engineer, tasked with designing Tidetec’s turret for the pilot project.

Also, Bert Pasop was appointed as Technical Lead working part-time for Tidetec, and also for Storvik, sharing his vast experience in prototyping and product development.

The new appointments come in support of Tidetec’s pilot project, whose goal is to demonstrate and validate the performance and reliability of the company’s tidal energy solution.

Tidetec’s pilot project

Innovation Norway has supported the project, having recently awarded little over € 112,000 (NOK 1.2 million) in pre-project grant funding to Tidetec.

“A pilot will provide Tidetec with the required credibility and bankability for the upcoming tidal projects and establish company’s brand in the industry sector,” Tidetec said in a statement.

In preparation of the application, support letters were sought and received by a project owner Port of Mostyn, and a turbine manufacture Rainpower. Also, Tidetec has entered in deliberations with Rainpower to reach a mutually beneficial agreement towards the commercialization of its technology, according to the company.

The patented rotating turret is the core of the Tidetec technology concept. The main intention of the turret is to turn the bespoke turbine which has been optimized for pumping operation, making it ideal for a two-way generation with mitigation pumping operation.

The size of the pilot turbine that will be housed in Tidetec’s  turnable turret will be around 2 metres in diameter, with a rated capacity of around 1 MW, according to Tidetec.

The annual energy production depends on the selected installation site specifics. Tidetec noted is now accepting the suggestions for suitable location for the pilot project.

The testing plan is expected to last more than one month in order to capture tidal variations (spring/neap tides). During that time, Tidetec will test different operational strategies, serving different goals and utility purposes such as pumped-hydro storage, meeting certain load levels scenarios, hydrogen production, flood defence and so forth.

Turbine fish survival tests are also being considered, Tidetec confirmed.

According to the company, the current schedule envisions to have the pilot up and running by the beginning of 2022.

The full-size application of Tidetec technology is intended for barrage and tidal lagoon power plants.

To remind, Tidetec has recently been selected for support as part of the EU-funded Ocean DEMO project.

Successful Ocean DEMO applicants will receive free access to test their ocean energy products and services in real sea environments at the project’s network of test centres,  spanning four countries in Europe.