Tocardo wraps up scaled UFS testing

Tocardo has completed the tests of its scaled Universal Foundation System (UFS) at the MARIN research institute in the Netherlands.

Dutch tidal turbine manufacturer and project developer conducted the trials of the 1:18 scale model semi-submersive floating tidal platform, the UFS, at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) concept basin, which is 3.6 meters deep and 220 meters long.

Pieter de Haas, Chief Technical Officer at Tocardo, said: “Our scale model passed the test with flying colors and behaved exactly like we expected and even better than that.”

The full-scale UFS is designed to host five 300kW-rated T2 bi-directional turbines, with a total capacity of 1.5MW.

Tocardo plans to test the first UFS platform fitted with four 250kW T2 turbines at Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) in Nova Scotia, Canada, starting in 2017.

Through Minas Tidal Limited Partnership, formed by Tocardo and two Canadian companies, Minas Energy, and International Marine Energy, three other UFS platforms, each with the capacity of 1MW, are planned for deployment in the Bay of Fundy.