An important milestone in the development of Oceanflow’s Evopod™ technology was reached on the 6th of March 2011 with the demonstration of grid connectivity by the Company’s 1:10th scale trials unit in Strangford Narrows Northern Ireland, using our innovative midwater buoy solution. The output from the floating tethered tidal turbine can now be fed into the domestic mains circuit of the Queen's University Marine Laboratory. Oceanflow’s patent protected midwater buoy solution is an essential element in the transmission of power from the free floating, semi-submerged Evopod™ to the subsea power export cable. Performance data from the midwater buoy and its mooring and power export system will assist Oceanflow in the design of its larger 35kW unit to be deployed in Scottish waters later this year.

A detailed seabed survey and environmental impact study for the use of the inshore tidal site was carried out by Marenco Environmental Consultants as part of the permitting process for the Queen’s University Belfast test site. The seabed cable linking Evopod™ to the Marine Laboratory was procured from Cortland Fibron and installed by Cuan Rhib Services. Power is exported via a Focal slipring supplied by MacArtney Underwater Technology which is installed within the midwater buoy (fabricated by William Oliver and Rodman Russell, North Shields). The Evopod™ turbine coupled to the midwater buoy employs a fixed pitch turbine driving a FuturEnergy permanent magnet generator through a ZF Gearbox supplied by Heason Technology. The power control and data capture system developed in-house by Oceanflow Energy, employs a Mastervolt Windmaster inverter drive. The paint system including a unique batch of yellow anti-fouling coating was supplied by International Paints. Partial grant funding was aquired from One North East (regional development agency) for the North East of England.