Funding flows to flagship Welsh tidal power project

Plans for one of the UK's largest tidal energy projects moved a step closer to reality this week as Welsh developer Tidal Energy Ltd confirmed it has secured £11m in new funding.

Announcing the funding round at a ceremony attended by Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones, the company revealed it hopes to deploy its 1.2MW DeltaStream device next year at a location off the coast of Pembrokeshire in south-western Wales.

The £11m of funding consisted of £6.4m from the European Regional Development Fund, with the remainder provided by investors Eco2 Ltd.

The project will also be supported by Cranfield University, which will oversee condition-monitoring for the project and independently assess the performance of the demonstration device.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Tidal Energy managing director Martin Murphy said the funding represented the "final piece of the jigsaw" for the project, allowing the company to move forward with its plans to deploy the device next summer.

The DeltaStream device will be positioned facing the oncoming tidal flow. This will drive underwater turbines that will pass electricity to the shore via subsea cables.

The company said the device will sit on the seabed and will not require drilling of foundations. As such, the firm is predicting the system will have a lower environmental impact than some other devices.

Murphy revealed the company now plans to trial the DeltaStream device for a year, testing the characteristics of the system. If the trial is successful, it intends to deploy an array of another eight devices with up to 10MW capacity from 2015.

The announcement comes just weeks after two recent studies highlighted the huge potential for marine energy systems in the UK.

A study from the Carbon Trust estimated that tidal and wave energy could provide 15 to 20 per cent UK's electricity by 2050, while the Welsh government has set a goal of deploying 4GW of marine energy capacity by 2025.