Open-Centre Turbine, Tidal Turbine by OpenHydro

OpenHydro is an Irish energy technology company whose business is the design and manufacture of marine turbines for generating renewable energy from tidal streams. The company’s vision is to deploy arrays of tidal turbines under the world’s oceans, silently and invisibly generating electricity at no cost to the environment. The Open-Centre Turbine is designed to be deployed directly on the seabed. Installations will be silent and invisible from the surface. They will be located at depth and present no navigational hazard. Farms of Open-Centre Turbines will provide a significant and undetectable supply of clean, predictable, renewable energy. Communities that benefit from power supplied by Open-Centre Turbine technology will never be conscious of the turbines’ existence.

OpenHydro and French utility company EDF are in the final stage of deploying the first of four 16m tidal turbines off the coast of Paimpol-Bréhat.

The first stage of a project which in 2012 will create the world’s largest tidal array generating power onto the French grid. The turbines are supplied by Greenore-based OpenHydro and each has the capacity to generate over 2MW of energy.

Openhydro and its partner DCNS have now completed the assembly of the first turbine for the Paimpol-Bréhat project. The installation is performed using the custom designed installation barge, the ‘Openhydro Triskell’.

James Ives, chief executive, OpenHydro, said: We are delighted to be working with EDF on what is set to be the world’s first large-scale, grid-connected tidal energy farm and France’s first offshore tidal installation. EDF’S vision to develop this exciting project places France and EDF at the forefront of this new form of renewable energy generation.’

Via [The Argus]