World's First Tidal Power Project Hits Major Milestone

A company with its headquarters in Edinburgh said on Monday that its project has produced 50 gigawatt hours of electricity, a first for the developing tidal power industry.

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The CEO of SAE Renewables, Graham Reid, claimed in a statement that "during the early hours of this morning... our tidal stream array off the coast of the Pentland Firth became the first tidal stream array in the world to generate 50GWh of power."

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As a "major milestone in producing tidal stream power at scale," Reid called the announcement.

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Less than 50% of that amount is generated globally overall by all other tidal devices and sites, he continued.

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The SAE Renewables MeyGen array, which is made up of four 1.5 megawatt turbines and has a total capacity of 6 MW when fully operational, is situated in waters to the north of mainland Scotland. Three turbines are currently in use.

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The MeyGen site has been operating since 2017, Reid said. "We have overcome numerous hurdles, with reliability being a problem in the early days, but we have learned an enormous lot along the road."

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Scotland has a long history of involvement in the production of oil and gas from the North Sea, but in recent years it has emerged as a hub for businesses and initiatives centered on tidal power and marine energy in general.

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The 600 kilowatt Shetland Tidal Array was created by Nova Innovation, and Orbital Marine Power is developing what it calls the "highest powerful tidal turbine in the world."

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The European Marine Energy Centre is located in the Orkney archipelago, north of the Scottish mainland, and it allows wave and tidal energy producers to test and evaluate their technologies in open water.

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Very Little Footprint

Notwithstanding the excitement surrounding the promise of marine energy, tidal stream projects still have a considerably lesser environmental impact than other renewable energy sources.

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However, some development has been made recently. 2.2 MW of tidal stream capacity was installed in Europe in 2021, up from just 260 KW in 2020, according to data from the trade organisation Ocean Energy Europe that was made public in March 2022. 3.12 Megawatt of installed tidal stream capacity worldwide.

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In contrast, estimates from the trade group WindEurope show that Europe installed 17.4 gigawatts of wind generating capacity in 2021.