Current Developments

Oceanflow is currently developing a 1/4th scale mono-turbine Evopod which follows the successful operational experience of our 1/10th scale project in Strangford Narrows, Northern Ireland. The new 1/4th scale project consists of an Evopod with a rated output of 37kW that will be connected into the 11kV grid at Southend, South Kintyre. In October 2011 Oceanflow reached an Agreement for Lease with The Crown Estate which offers Oceanflow the opportunity of leasing an area of Sanda Sound in an environment of 20m water depth and up to 4 knots flow speed. Our licence application to deploy the test device is currently undergoing checks by Marine Scotland and its environmental consultees. During 2010/11 Oceanflow funded environmental surveys of the area including seabird and marine wildlife surveys and will continue to monitor the environmental sensitivity of the device once it is installed which is planned to take place in 2013.

Previous Developments

In December 2007 Oceanflow was awarded a research grant by One NorthEast, the Regional Development Agency for the North East of England, to support the testing of a 1/10th scale Evopod and its mooring system in real tidal stream conditions. Testing of the 10th scale unit started in June 2008 and continued through into 2009 which included a period of deployment over the winter months. In November 2010 a seabed cable was laid to allow power from the unit to be transmitted into the mains switchboard of the Queen's University Marine Laboratory at Portaferry and on Sunday the 6th of March 2011 the installation was fully completed and the 1KW Evopod unit achieved a world first for the first successful power export from a floating tidal turbine.

Demonstration of the 1/10th scale Evopod followed on from the "Proof of Concept" phase that was carried out in 2005/06 with the support of a DTI Research Grant. This work was carried out by Oceanflow with support from the North East Business Innovation Centre (BIC) and Newcastle University's School of Marine Science and Technology (MAST) and their Resource Centre for Innovation and Design (RCID) and was completed in June 2006. Tests carried out on a 1/40th scale model at the University combined wave and current flume tank were used to validate the turbine efficiency and the floating tethered platform's motion stability characteristics. Detailed evaluation of the mooring system was carried out using OrcaFlex industry standard software backed up by the model tests.

Collaboration & Support