Tidal current turbines

Tidal current electricity is clean, renewable, reliable  and  predictable.  While  ocean  currents  move  slowly  relative  to  typical  wind speeds, they carry a great deal of energy. Sea  water  has  more  than  800  times  the density than air, so for the same rotor swept area,  water  moving  at  2.5  m/s  (5  knots) exerts about the same amount of force as a constant 350 km/h wind.

Building on the successful prototype experiences, ANDRITZ Hydro Hammerfest’s current turbine technology is a tried-and-tested design with horizontal axis rotor, equipped with a specially designed variable-speed pitching mechanism and a nacelle yawing system allowing optimal harnessing of the tidal currents in both flood and ebb directions.. Automatic control software governing a sensor-driven monitoring system adjusts the leading edge to capture optimum output from a given tidal stream environment.

It is meant for among the most taxing marine currents, designed to handle flows up to and above 5m/s. Designed for water depths down to 100m  the tidal turbines are deployed on the seabed and kept in position by gravity, pins or pilings depending on the seabed and tidal stream characteristics.

At the end of 2014, ANDRITZ Hydro Hammerfest received an order from the UK-based tidal development company MeyGen Ltd. to supply three 1.5 MW tidal current turbines for an array under contruction in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth, Scotland.

The order placed with ANDRITZ Hydro Hammerfest is the first commercial order worldwide to supply tidal current turbines and part of the first project phase in completion of the MeyGen tidal array, which is the largest development project worldwide for a tidal turbine array.
The Inner Sound of Pentland Firth is recognized as one of the most challenging and highly active sites of tidal flow with high wave frequency and requires careful engineering, manufacturing, and assembly to ensure that the technology deployed is able to operate and perform within its environs.

The ANDRITZ Hydro Hammerfest HS1000 pre-commercial tidal turbine has been successfully certified by DNV (Det Norske Veritas) in 2013.
The technology had already a five-year track record in Norwegian waters as the first ever tidal current turbine with permanent connection to a public grid in 2004. This smaller prototype has demonstrated more than 17,000 hour’s production track record of which more than 9,500 hours of continuous operation.
At the end of 2014, ANDRITZ Hydro Hammerfest received an order from the UK-based tidal development company MeyGen Ltd. to supply three 1.5 MW tidal current turbines for an array under construction in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth, Scotland.

In December 2011 ANDRITZ Hydro Hammerfest successfully deployed its 1 MW pre-commercial tidal turbine HS1000 at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney, Scotland, destined to validate the technology for commercial tidal stream array application’s and has exported more than 1GWh of electrical power to the national grid powering the equivalent of 250 households for a year.

Find out more ...